Monroe/El Dorado Market Poised To Explode

The tiny Monroe, La.-El Dorado, Ark. media market -- in the largely rural area where Arkansas meets Louisiana -- at first might seem like a story with little to tell.

With a population a bit over 470,000, it hovers just above the cutoff line for the smallest one-third of the nation’s television markets. In 2010, total local ad spending here came in at $146 million, with only $15.7 million of that attributed to online dollars, according to media consultants Borrell Associates.

But the flip side of this story is that, like many other small markets that were slow to embrace the Internet, Monroe/El Dorado is poised for a rapid game of catch-up. Local online advertising here is expected to more than double by 2015, according to Borrell Associates, leaping 115%, to $33.8 million.

Another thing: this market is home to one of the newspapers owned by an early and vocal advocate of Web site paywalls: WEHCO Media Inc. Walter E. Hussman Jr., WEHCO’s president and CEO and part of the family that founded the private media group, argued in a 2007 Wall Street Journal article that newspapers should reconsider the “costs and consequences of free news.

“Why would they [young people] buy a newspaper when they can get the same information online for free?” asked Hussman.

WEHCO owns 15 daily and 13 weekly newspapers, along with 13 cable television networks in the South and Southwest. Like other papers in the chain, the El Dorado News-Times operates a Web site that is mostly inaccessible to nonsubscribers.

Betty Chatham, general manager at the 9,000 circulation paper, said eldoradonews.com probably brings in more revenue because it is a paid site. Subscribers of the print newspaper get free access to the electronic version of the paper, with 350 non-subscribers paying $4.95-a-month to read it.

Despite the paywall, Chatham said the site is growing. It draws 55,000 to 60,000 monthly unique visitors, she said, and 240,000 to 250,000 page views per month. That’s up from 190,000 page views six months ago. For all of 2010, she said, there were 677,000 unique visitors and 2.6 million page views.

But one reason for the boost is the recent addition of links to new categories not hidden behind the wall, Chatham said. Obituaries and classified ads were already freely accessible, she said, but about three months ago, free links were created for church news, school menus, state hunting and fishing information, “Most wanted” crime information and “On the Record” listings of marriages, divorces, civil lawsuits and so forth.

“We needed more things to read that were outside the paywall that maybe would direct people behind the paywall and make them want to subscribe,” Chatham said.

The paper also offers a searchable local business directory, which Chatham said has increased ad revenue.

But social media hasn’t caught on at the paper yet. News-Times reporters don’t Tweet, and the paper doesn’t have a Facebook page, Chatham said. But the paper is planning to launch an iPhone app in the near future, she said.

The Media Audit does not track online visits for this small market. But Monroe’s larger newspaper, The News-Star (circulation 23,000 daily/29,000 Sunday), probably has the winning Web site here.

Thenewsstar.com has about 350,000 monthly unique visitors and gets 8 million to 10 million page views per month, the paper’s multimedia editor Fred Phillips said. In all of 2010, there were 3 million unique visitors and 109 million page views, he said.

That’s a healthy increase from 2009’s 76 million page views, Phillips said.

Photo galleries are a big draw on the site. Criminal mugshots are especially popular (followed by high school football), Phillips said. The site repackaged its crime coverage in early 2010, adding new subsites for crime news, he said.

Another new feature is something called “See, Click, Fix,” which allows site visitors to report and post photos of problems like potholes and broken traffic lights, Phillips said. That was added last summer.

News-Star parent, Gannett Co., is responsible for designing the Monroe paper’s site and providing servers that support it, Phillips said.

While The News-Star doesn’t have any apps or a public e-edition, it does offer a mobile site. And unlike its rival, News-Star reporters and editors use Twitter to send breaking news and the paper has a Facebook site, Phillips said.

The Monroe market also has two prominent TV Web sites.

KNOE.com had 625,000 unique visitors and 4.1 million page views in 2010, the site’s manager Shayne Carter said. That’s a 56% and 64% increase, respectively, in those measures over 2009, according to Carter.

The station uses the WorldNow Web service as host and for content management and Akamai servers to store some content, Carter said.

WorldNow allows two site revamps a year, said Marla Gilcrease, news director at KNOE 8 News. One in September streamlined the site, making it easier to read and navigate, she said. Another redesign is scheduled for late February.