Hutchinson News named to E&P leader list

When Editor & Publisher put out the call for nominations for its annual 10 Newspapers That Do It Right feature, the magazine asked newspapers to send in their best ideas; in particular: “What was your most notable idea/project that helped the company find success?”

The Hutchinson News found itself in good company. Others named in the feature were: The Baltimore Sun, C-Ville Weekly in Charlottesville, Va., Denver Post, Inlander from Spokane, Wash., News-Gazette from Champaine, Ill., Orlando Sentinel, Record-Journal of Meriden, Conn., StarNews of Wilmington, N.C., and the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison.

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Hutchinson News
Hutchinson, Kan.
Circulation: 28,000 Sunday; 26,000 daily

In October, the Hutchinson News along with sister paper, The Garden City Telegram, launched a joint Sunday print edition. The Telegram, with a circulation of 4,500, previously only published Monday through Saturday, but readers wanted local coverage every day of the week.

Sara Bass, News marketing director and circulation operations manager, said, “The plan was for the Telegram to have a four-page cover section, in which they would provide news content and sell advertising. The Hutchinson News Sunday edition would be inserted inside…Since the launch, Sunday print home delivery for the News is up six percent year-over-year, the opt-out rate has been minimal, and both advertising and subscriber revenue has significantly increased for both papers.”

The News also expanded its digital presence by building several niche websites. Although Kansas is not known for earthquakes, publisher John Montgomery explained that due to the increase of fracking in the area, there have been more earthquakes. To provide residents with the most recent information, the paper created KansasQuakes.com, where residents can find a live map of events as soon as they’re recorded by the United State Geological Survey.

Also in 2015, the News created new digital sites within its own news site to showcase the Kansas State Fair and the Cosmosphere International SciED Center and Space Museum, both located in Hutchinson.

The state fair site features local weather reports, a live calendar of events and a history page, and Hutchnews.com/space features the paper’s continuing coverage of the Cosmosphere. It includes a chaptered documentary and interactive timeline about Apollo 13, a Kansas Space Hall of Fame and a space news station. Bass said the site is optimized for mobile and has brought in revenue through site sponsorships.

Montgomery said all of the new digital projects launched as a response to diversify and the work is done in-house. “Resources well spent,” he said.

The News also invested in Kansas Agland, its Web and print publication targeting the agricultural communities of western Kansas. The publication began in 2010, and in 2015, the News redesigned the website and added contributions from sister newspapers along with a podcast. According to Bass, the website started 2015 with more than 4,600 unique visitors and by September, it had grown to more than 21,000. The print publication is distributed to more than 27,000 households.

“All this reflected in revenue, which tripled in 2015 as Agland picked up advertisers from as far away as the northwestern corner of the state” Bass said. “Ad count more than doubled.”