Eddy Hartenstein on Circulation at the LA Times

From: Hartenstein, Eddy
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 8:50 AM
To: zzTrbAllHandsLAT
Subject: Update



Colleagues:

This morning, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) released its bi-yearly report on paid circulation results for the six-month period ending September 2010. In it, The Times reported Daily (Monday–Friday) circ of 600,449 and Sunday circ of 901,119. Although this is down from last year by 8.7% and 8.4% respectively, these declines were expected and primarily due to efforts to improve our overall operations and financial position.

It’s important to note that the rate of decline is slowing and we are projecting it to continue to slow as we carry our strategic plan forward. Since early April, a cross-departmental team has been focused on our Sunday print edition, which is the second largest of any newspaper in the country, behind only the nationally-distributed New York Times. We’ve been better coordinating content of interest to that large readership and have increased our budget for a multimedia marketing campaign that has thus far yielded over 20,000 new home delivery orders and better single copy performance. In fact, September circ figures show Sunday losses of just over 6% and October looks stronger yet.

Although we still see risks in a weak economy, we are actively re-investing in the company. These initiatives include:

* Maintaining editorial staffing levels, enabling us to break major investigative stories such as the Bell scandal, deliver groundbreaking education reform coverage, “Grading the Teachers” and – in the case of our arts & entertainment team – bring on a couple of key new hires
* Launching S.C.O.R.E. our new reader rewards program
* Increasing our color capacity and re-tooling the Olympic production facility
* Launching the new Times Select consumer product
* Creating the Los Angeles Times Celebration of Food & Wine which drew a capacity crowd of 8,000 attendees, 164 exhibitors & 16 sponsors
* Expanding Times Community News’ Daily Pilot into Irvine
* Developing and launching two new iPhone apps


We are also continuing to evolve our multimedia portfolio; getting positive LATExtra feedback, seeing latimes.com’s mobile site averaging 1 million monthly unique visitors and looking towards our forthcoming personalized shopping platform. And our Ink campaign continues to make an impact, with high-profile outdoor billboards atop the W Hotel in Hollywood and at the new, Santa Monica Place, as well as a new in-theatre trailer and upcoming direct-response television campaign.


Thank you for your efforts in helping make the Los Angeles Times a stronger, better company that consistently delivers what advertisers and consumers want in local media.


Eddy Hartenstein Bill Nagel