Needs of the Bath Chronicle

Link to Lynn's Presentation

Link to Video 1

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Link to Video 3

It's my belief that more and more youths are becoming disinterested in newspapers as a media outlet, and as it is still their main source of income, the Bath Chronicle need to find a way to get young people interested in it. That being said, they do have their fair share of young readers, but according to the Editor in Chief of the Bath Chronicle, it seems that they are only reading the Chronicle because it's available in their households. So when they inevitably leave home they stop buying the paper. So their real problem isn't attracting young readers, but keeping them.

It is imperative that the Bath Chronicle resolves this problem because just like many companies that didn’t focus on carrying on their brand recognition with the younger generation, or try to attract and retain the up-and-coming demographic, it will be to it's detriment. Brand recognition is so crucial today. If young persons don't know about your brand, then they're not going to go out and buy it. Nor can you rely on them to search for it. So you have to advertise the product to them specifically.

Retain Their Young Audience
The Bath Chronicle does in fact appeal to large audience of young people. This is evident from their massive social networking footprint. Raking up over 1.4 million website hits a month, 6.3 thousand FaceBook likes, and 16.4 thousand twitter followers. With these numbers rapidly growing by each day. But the Chronicle's needs lie with their main print publication, their newspaper. Though it reaches a far larger audience than any other news paper in the south west of England, with a weekly reach of 152,195 (as depicted in the picture below).

The paper is mostly bought by consumers over 36 years old. Granted, because the newspaper is in these households which typically have young person in it, it does get read by them but when these young persons move out they don't continue buying the paper. So the Chronicle needs to employ a strategy that retains that audience. Something that is interesting and relevant to them, that will keep them coming back each thursday for more.

Have An Easy-To-Use Website
This is also a very important aspect to the Chronicle's survival through this technological revolution. Personally, I completely judge a company by their website, and I know a lot of people do too. For many new consumers the first thing they see is the website, which is why it's first impression is so important. If the website is slow, 'lags' a lot and is glitchy, has a poor aesthetic appeal or is cheap, tacky and inundated with adverts, it's a major turn off for the user. From my experience with them website, these are all things I have noticed.

Needs of the Bath Chronicle
To pay the staff's wages
To pay their office rent
To cover their overheads
To please their advertisers
To remain relevant
To connect with their audience

Goals of the Bath Chronicle in Relation to the Youth
Young people today increasingly want shorter, snappier, more immersive ways to connect and consume media. The Chronicle needs to be able to give them what they want. Use what young persons today are using to connect, and use that to engage with them.

The targeted demographic are persons aged 14-25 who live at home or who are not yet home owners. As I see it, their needs are first, content which is relevant to them. Content about their passions, hobbies, worries and fears. Material that will improve their lifestyle, that they will feel compelled to buy.

Secondly, they need to be able to interact with the Chronicle, to get their views and opinions heard and seen. This is important as this generation is one of the most opinionated ones, that with the advent of social networks like Twitter and FaceBook where persons can freely and instantly get 'published'.

Lastly, they need simple, quick and informative entertainment. These days the most popular videos on the internet are just 3 minutes or less, and can be an informative tutorial, or just a comedy sketch, but it needs to be entertaining.