Here’s an cute ad that the Journal ran back on Feb. 12, 1971. The nearly 3/4 page ad promoting the newspaper itself features the comic strip character Dennis the Menace.
The tousle-haired tyke had first appeared in the pages of the Journal back in 1955 (which I wrote about here). The popular one-panel strip enjoyed a high profile location right at the bottom of the editorial page for years.
The ad is interesting because it mentions a few of the things that made the Journal special back then, including syndicated columns such as Ann Landers and Art Buchwald, as well as the great local features, such as Bill Scrivo’s People, the Hot Line help column, reporter Jim Mahony’s column, etc. Unfortunately, too many papers have had to cut their staffs in order to save costs and stay afloat.
I really think newspapers such as the Journal today really need to bring back those kind of special local features and columns, if they want to have any chance at all of rebuilding their circulation numbers.
Hi Dan - To think that in the early 80's the Journal's household penetration in their designated market was 67%. That's households taking the paper...two out of three houses from Avon Lake to Vermillion, Lorain to South Amherst took the daily Journal...even higher on Sunday. Once Circulation started to decline in the early 90's papers started using "readership" in place of circulation. They said research shows 2.5 readers per copy so with less circulation papers could still present a decent number to advertisers. As I drive to my part-time job before 6a in Nashville I hardly see any papers in driveways anymore. I do believe people would respond to a good product but corporate newspapers have all but killed that from happening...sad. Todd
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