1. Start ‘em Young: Developing Teens into Lifelong Newspaper Readers Trennia Donohue University of St. Thomas May 18, 2004

2. Declining Readership of Newspapers 72% of adults read Sunday newspaper in 1970 63% of adults read Sunday newspaper in 2002

3. Why Study Teen Newspaper Readership? Generation Y 1978-1994 Largest generation since Baby Boomers 33.7 million 12-18 year olds in 2005 Establish reading habits

4. What are the Options for Increasing Readership? Bring young readers to current paper Develop new products for young readers Chicago Tribune’s RedEye Philadelphia Daily News’ Metro

5. Research Question Are there changes to the daily newspaper that would increase teen readership?

6. Research Methodology 3 East Metro high schools Grades 9-12 300 surveys Administered in classrooms by teachers

7. Response 75% response rate, 226 responses 52% male, 48% female 42% were 10 th graders

8. Where do you get most of your news ? 57% of teens get their news from television.

9. How often do you read the newspaper? 56% read everyday or a few times a week 80% read at least 1X per week

10. What sections do you read most often? Sports and Variety/Express 1 st choice. Variety Express Sports Comics

11. Favorite part of the newspaper? Males chose Sports, females chose movies and fashion.

12. What’s your least favorite section? Females chose business, males chose fashion.

13. What days are you reading? Sunday and Friday are most read.

14. In the next 2 years you will: As adults, teens plan to read about the same. Read the paper a lot more 35% Read the paper about the same 60% Read the paper less5%

15. Biggest reason for not reading? Comprehension is not an issue. Not enough time/too busy50% Not interested38% Don’t have access8% Too hard to understand2%

16. What would you like to see more of? Sports and coverage of young people important. More sports 26% Stories on young people22% More photos10%

17. How would you rate the newspaper? 86% rated excellent, very good, or good.

18. How is this useful? Developing strategies Teens are reading newspapers Particular sections/days of week are more highly read

19. Recommendations Target messages to teens in what they are reading Add serial stories to encourage multiple day reading. Promote teen stories in upcoming issues in highly read sections on popular days of the week.

20. Recommendations Provide news summaries for time- pressed readers Expose teens to newspaper more frequently through teen event sponsorship Sponsor high school sporting events Sponsor fashion events at area malls

21. Conclusion Research Question: Are there changes to the daily newspaper that would increase teen readership? YES!

22. Questions?