BILTMORE AREA PARTNERSHIP LUNCHEON
Tuesday, November 22, 2011

SPEAKER: BRET McKEAND, Publisher and Vice President of Independent Newsmedia and Publisher of the Biltmore Independent. (website: www.newszap.com)

TOPIC: "THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER IN TODAY'S WORLD"

Have been with Independent for 28 years. Seen our company, newspapers and communities we serve grow. Like to think we played positive roll in some of that growth and in recording the local history of some of the communities in AZ.

Independent newspapers started by Jack Smith when he bought his local newspaper in PA. Later sold it and moved operations to DEL and started daily newspaper. Corporate headquarters are there. Joe Smith, his son and CEO, lives in Valley and is responsible for dramatic growth our company has seen. Publish over 3 dozen newspapers in DEL, MD, VA, AZ Own several printing plants

In Arizona, we publish 10 community weekly newspapers, and two monthly papers. Reach over 170,000 homes each week in the Valley. Apache Junction newspaper oldest - newest is Biltmore Independent a monthly publication launched last year. Also operate a multimillion dollar state of the art printing plant in Phoenix-also print about 100 other newspapers throughout AZ and So. CA. Have just signed a contract to print the AZ edition of the Wall Street Journal

Goal: Serve needs of our local readers - why we publish separate editions rather than one regional city wide-better serve readers and advertisers-be our readers' number one choice for news-local news, sports, schools, and people. Have website to help us achieve that goal.

We are specialists in "refrigerator journalism". Means, stuff mom cuts out and puts on the refrigerator. We just cover local news and leave it up to bigger papers to cover arts, entertainment, etc.

Change in last 20 to 30 years: In Chicago today, only 2 daily newspapers-both in bankruptcy and Chicago Tribune prints both the publications-used to be 5 daily newspapers.

Today everything from writing the story to taking pictures, composing paper, preparing for the printing is done digitally by the computer. All is proofed on a computer screen and with push of a button it goes to printing plant.

Demise of newspapers: People say that because of internet and social media. It has changed business, but all businesses have changed. Don't count us out just yet, especially the community newspapers papers. Demise has been around for years, started with radio, TV, cable TV and then Internet. Newspapers are still here.

Stats: 50 million consumers still purchase a newspaper every Sat. or Sun.-every week more than 400 million decide to purchase a daily or weekly newspaper-each week millions more await delivery of their free newspaper. 70% of readers say they seek out a newspaper for advertisements & offerings of sales in their neighborhood. Number 1 source for political candidate information. 50% of the people find newspapers more trustworthy, than TV, radio, internet. 60% say newspaper is primary source of their local news.

Some struggling and some have not survived. For many, too expensive to print and distribute a product like this. Some publishers have been poor and sloppy operators. Big papers are the ones having the problems. Have spent decades acquiring debt like buying sports teams for example.

Newspaper business has been slow to adapt to change. Last to figure out how to make money with the internet. Need to focus on what we do well. We get calls if one does not get their paper or if there is a mistake. We will redeliver and print corrections. Never had a call telling me something is wrong on the website. People still want to see the print-mom's want something for their scrapbook.

No one provides more information on local government, local schools, local sports, and local people than we in the local newspaper. Newspapers' contains more advertising than a lot of other products. When money is tight, we can offer more advertisement both online and in print, inserts, flyers, classified ads, sticky notes on our papers and can deliver a sample of your product with our newspaper.

Biltmore and Paradise Valley has only two newspapers we mail. Biltmore zip code 85016 and Paradise Valley 85253. Biltmore once a month-2nd week of the month. Paradise Valley same. All the rest adult carrier. Distribution is 8,000 in each area.

We promote and sponsor events in almost all the communities we are in. Deadline for info for weekly is noon Friday of week before and monthly is noon of 1st Friday of the month.

We love information from our readers. Do have an editorial staff that will write stories for page one and stories inside. Will cover local school board meetings, local city council meetings-that kind of things. We are really big on submitted news. We also love to have photos. Have a contest among our newspapers as to who has the most faces.