Foundation Update (Spring 2006 issue)
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Adding It Up
A new NAA Foundation research project will examine the impact of youth content.
By Sandy Woodcock
Frequently, it’s all about the numbers. That’s something I’ve learned during my time with the NAA Foundation. And it seems that the numbers have become increasingly more depressing each year.
Not long ago, I took a call from a reporter doing a story on youth pages. Those of you who are on the Youth Editorial Alliance (YEA) e-forum know that we’ve lost more than a few over the last four years. That’s bad news for youth editors and even worse news for young readers.
It’s bad news for the industry, too, when newspapers abandon efforts to provide added value to their young readers at the very time that research determines those same readers are developing the habits that make them lifelong readers.
In an effort to provide the industry with some numbers, the NAA Foundation has commissioned MORI Research of Minneapolis to study what impact youth content may have on future readership. The number of existing youth products and how long they have existed were factors in determining that we would study seven markets rather than conduct a national survey.
You may recall the NAA Foundation’s last major research project, conducted in 2004 and called “Growing Lifelong Readers.” We hoped when we began the “Growing Lifelong Readers” study that it would find a measurable relationship between youth content and readership.
But when the numbers were in, content specifically for children and teens scored very low as a part of the newspaper the people surveyed recalled as something that first attracted them to newspapers. The biggest content driver for males was sports, followed by comics. For women it was comics, followed closely by news.
Taking into consideration the insignificant number of newspapers that include youth content and the relatively short length of time these newspapers have been running it, we determined that many of those surveyed may never have seen specific youth content in their local newspaper. So, we decided to study specific markets where youth content has been published for at least a decade, with the survey focusing on people who are ages 18 to 24.
Geographic diversity and places where there are enough people in the 18-24 age demographic to survey were important considerations. We also wanted to mix up the kinds of products. In the end, we selected seven markets: Buffalo; Virginia Beach; Kansas City, Mo.; Reading, Pa.; Warren, Ohio; Ogden, Utah; Springfield, Ill.; and Santa Fe, N.M.
The study began with focus groups in Buffalo and Kansas City as the research firm looked for input into the development of the survey questionnaire. Survey results will be shared at the Young Reader Conference July 22-26 in St. Louis.
Input from the focus groups wasn’t surprising. Some participants recalled reading the section when they were teens, but were surprised by changes in the section’s size and the prominence of the section’s brand. Many agreed that youth sections need to have substance – be larger than just a single page with perhaps a jump page – and to have a visual presence within the newspaper.
And while they wouldn’t buy the newspaper just for the youth section, focus group members once again rated sports and local news high among their content choices.
So, it seems to me that it’s still all about the numbers – that is, the number of column inches devoted to content such as sports, comics and local news versus the news hole given to cover topics of particular interest to youth.
Sandy Woodcock, director, NAA Foundation, can be reached at woods@naa.org.
