HOT PURSUIT
The expression, “twice is nice,” has taken on an extraordinary meaning for the Steele County Times over the past year.
Most recently, we found out that our circulation is double that of the century-old plus daily serving the area. According to postal reports, which are required to be filed by newspaper owners every October with the U.S. Postal Service, our circulation is 3,040 compared to the Owatonna People’s Press at 1,490.
Those numbers obviously don’t account for the total number of people who read our newspaper. It’s estimated that each newspaper generates 2.8 readers, which means at least 8,500 people read us every week. I must believe that number is conservative.
This week we’re sending the newspaper out to every household in Steele County, so our circulation is about 18,000 this week. If you’re not a regular subscriber, I hope you will consider joining us, whether in print or online through our E-Edition.
The other reason things are “twice is nice” is because earlier this year we were named Minnesota’s top weekly newspaper for the second year in a row. We’d love to make it a trifecta in January, but that remains to be seen.
Beginning next week, I start my 18th year of owning this newspaper. Little did I know back then how important having a family-owned newspaper would become down the road. I truly believe small family-owned operations have become the gold standard for keeping community journalism alive and newspapers thriving in tough times.
It has been an incredible run over that time. I have enjoyed the countywide expansion, which took place about 10 years ago. Our newspaper has also experienced significant growth in advertising as well as circulation as evidenced by the numbers above.
Many newspapers consider themselves fortunate if they can just maintain their circulation, but to double it is unheard of anywhere.
And for that, I am so appreciative of the faith readers and advertisers have put in us over the past 17 years. Being the most read newspaper in the county comes by no accident. Frankly, it’s because of wonderful readers like you. We love our readers!
Our greatest challenge is finding enough space to share all the local news we drum up every week. Even with a 40-page newspaper this week, there are at least eight locally written stories that didn’t make it in the paper. All I can say is watch for next week’s edition to see what you missed this week. While it’s nerve wracking as an editor to deal with making difficult decisions of what gets to go in when, it’s also a nice problem to be up against.
Local news is the bread and butter of what we do. No one else is going to run the volume of stories that we dig up every week. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, the stories we print are rarely going to make national headlines. It has happened a few times in my tenure with the Times. But that’s just fine because the stories we do are the stories that matter deeply to our readers.
A week doesn’t go by without somebody commenting about something they enjoyed in our newspaper. And, quite honestly, that’s the greatest motivation for me to continue doing what I’m doing.
I hope you will join us in celebrating how things are “twice is nice” at the Times. Heck, we even have a holiday subscription offer (Page W2) that you can use to get a friend or neighbor engaged in local news.
I know I’ve already mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. We love our readers. And we’re focused on being in hot pursuit of providing you with a product that you’ll love.