| The Perceived Strengths and Weaknesses of Newspapers: A Conceptual Scheme and an Overview
Published: October 12, 1998
Last Updated: January 12, 2000
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How do newspapers fare when pitted against the expectations that people
levy against media and when pitted against competitors? We provide answers
to that question in this and the next three chapters. Here, we lay out
a conceptual scheme for addressing the question and then provide a summary
answer. In the next three chapters, we elaborate on the details of that
answer.
A Conceptual Scheme
The American public evaluates newspapers against two standards: what
they want - the hierarchy of expectations presented in the last chapter
- and against what they feel other media have to offer. To gauge how newspapers
stand up against this twin set of expectations, we have sorted specific
ratings of newspapers and competitive media into the matrix that is displayed
on the following page.
The first step in the analytical process is to segment consumer expectations
according to their relative importance - high, medium and low - just as
we did in the prior chapter. This breakdown of expectations is captured
on the vertical axis of the matrix. Within each level of the three levels
of importance, we then subdivide these traits into those for which newspapers
receive relatively high ratings and those traits for which newspapers receive
ratings that are relatively low. The cut-off for a high rating is a top
two box score of 60% or higher, since 59% is the average newspaper rating
across all items studied. Last, we further sub-divide the relatively high
and low scores based on whether papers, overall, do better than competition
or do worse/the same.
Each cell in the matrix has a programmatic implication. For example,
newspapers' greatest perceived competitive strengths should be leveraged
to even greater advantage wherever possible. And, for things on which the
industry doesn't do quite so well, the short-term objective is to migrate
those traits into neighboring "better" cells. The long-term strategy is
to migrate as many traits as possible into the upper left cell (high expectations;
high perceived performance; better than competition) or into its nearest
neighbors.
CONCEPTUAL SCHEME: COMPETITIVE EVALUATION OF NEWSPAPERS AND OTHER
MEDIA
|
Importance Of Expectations
|
Newspapers Rated Relatively High...
|
Newspapers Rated Relatively Low...
|
| |
... AND BETTER THAN COMPETITORS |
... AND EQUAL/TO WORSE
THAN COMPETITORS |
... AND BETTER THAN COMPETITORS |
... AND EQUAL/TO WORSE
THAN COMPETITORS |
| HIGH |
PRIMARY STRENGTHS - LEVERAGE TO MAXIMUM |
"COST OF BUSINESS" - MAINTAIN OR ENHANCE |
OPEN OPPORTUNITY - DECIDE WHETHER TO PURSUE |
SERIOUS WEAKNESS - ADDRESS |
| MEDIUM |
SECONDARY STRENGTHS - ENHANCE IMPORTANCE |
"COST OF BUSINESS" - MAINTAIN |
OPEN OPPORTUNITY - DECIDE WHETHER TO PURSUE |
WEAKNESS - EVALUATE |
| LOW |
POSITIVE POTENTIAL - DECIDE WHETHER TO DEVELOP |
UNNECESSARY BURDEN - CONSIDER REDUCING INVESTMENT |
LIMITED OPPORTUNITY - NO ACTION |
NO OPPORTUNITY - NO ACTION |
An Overview of the Industry's Strengths and Weaknesses
The chart below provides a summary answer to the question posed at the
beginning of this chapter: What are the strengths and weaknesses of newspapers
when the public pits them against both their expectations and the perceived
performance of other media? The chart shows papers' relative perceived
performance for the hierarchy of expectations.
The next chapters will work through the matrix in detail, but it is
useful here to highlight the areas of greatest competitive strength and
weakness:
-
Greatest Competitive Strengths The leading strengths are local coverage
and utility particularly, as it pertains to advertising. Another leverageable
strength is related to the attractive demographic profile of regular readers,
namely, the belief that papers are read by people that one respects.
-
Greatest Competitive Weaknesses The bad news is that newspapers
do not do all that well when it comes to the core expectations of credibility
and providing depth/seriousness of purpose. But the good news is that no
medium "owns" these traits. Thus, these are also areas of opportunity for
newspapers. The same is true for providing positive news. Newspapers fare
worse than all other media when it comes to being engaging, but another
print medium, magazines, gets the highest score an encouraging finding
that suggests that the printed word hasn't lost hopelessly to TV images
when it comes to holding people's attention and just being interesting.
OVERVIEW: COMPETITIVE EVALUATION OF NEWSPAPERS AND OTHER MEDIA
|
Newspapers' Performance Rated
Relatively High |
Newspapers' Performance Rated
Relatively Low |
| EXPECTATIONS: |
BETTER THAN COMPETITION |
EQUAL TO/WORSE THAN COMPETITION |
BETTER THAN COMPETITION |
EQUAL TO/WORSE THAN COMPETITION |
| HIGH |
LOCAL COVERAGE
SERVICE/UTILITY RE ADVERTISING
USED BY PEOPLE YOU RESPECT |
EASY TO USE
TIMELY
VALUE FOR THE MONEY
HELPFUL IN DAILY LIFE |
|
CREDIBILITY
ENGAGING
DEPTH/SERIOUS-NESS OF PURPOSE
POSITIVE NEWS
NON-LOCAL COVERAGE |
| MEDIUM |
SPECIFIC AD CATEGORIES
ENTERTAINMENT |
|
|
BUSINESS & FINANCE
ENJOYABLE
OTHER FEATURES
"CONNECTING" WITH THE AUDIENCE |
| LOW |
SPORTS |
|
|
|
|
