The Daily Princetonian changes its business model

Student newspaper shifts from subscription to free distribution format

By: Alex Gennis
   On the morning of Sept. 13, at the outset of the academic year, all Princeton University students should have found a copy of the Daily Princetonian, Princeton’s student-run daily newspaper, laying outside their dorm room door — for free.
   This circumstance heralds a significant shakeup in the business model of the Daily Princetonian — also known as "the Prince" — which has made a commitment to distribute a copy of the daily newspaper for free to each of the more than 2,500 dorm rooms on campus. In the past students had to pay $50 for a yearlong subscription.
   "As a student publication we want to be in a position where we are best able to serve the community, including students and staff and serve them with our flagship product — the print edition," said Chanakya Sethi, the current editor-in-chief of the Prince.
   "Princeton students value the Prince, but is every student willing to pay $50 to get it delivered to their door? Probably not and nor should they," he added explaining the Prince’s decision to distribute for free.
   This move on the part of the Daily Princetonian follows in the footsteps of Harvard University, which is the only other Ivy League college to deliver its daily student newspaper for free to every student’s dorm room.
   As a result of the change, the Prince’s overseers expected readership to drastically increase. "The surveys that we did before we went free, indicated that the vast majority of Princeton students wanted and would read the Prince, were it delivered to their door," Mr. Sethi explained. "So we’re responding to a tangible demand that we identified."
   The Daily Princetonian, founded in 1876, is a nonprofit organization that is financially independent from the university. Its day-to-day operations are overseen by the editor-in-chief and the business manager, with broader fiduciary oversight conducted by a board of trustees composed of former members of The Daily Princetonian.
   As a result of the change to free distribution, the Daily Princetonian has had to increase the number of copies it prints from 2,000 to 3,500. In addition, it had to take on the additional cost of delivering to the whole campus, while losing the revenues that it used to get from student subscriptions.
   "Clearly we’re going to take a hit in revenue initially but we feel that those costs can be eventually recouped through increasing our readership and thus our advertising," said Morgan Kennedy, the business manager of the Daily Princetonian. "We’re also trying to push more paid subscriptions on faculty. At first we’re not going to have a surplus that we used to have."
   The Prince’s surplus is the money left over after paying for all operating expenses and allocating a portion of the revenues to the trustee’s fund, which is used for long-term expenditures. The surplus is then partially distributed among staff members in a fashion determined by Mr. Sethi and Ms. Kennedy.
   The Prince hopes to bring better value to advertisers and thus get more people to advertise with the Prince.
   "For our advertisers, we can now confidently say that when you buy an ad in the Daily Princetonian, you are really buying Princeton, and that everyone on Princeton’s campus will see that ad," Mr. Sethi explained. "And so we were able in that way to have a modest increase in advertising rates."
   The Prince has increased its advertising rates by an average of 8 percent. The ad rate for local businesses went from $4.50 per column inch to $5 per column inch. The rate for businesses outside of Princeton went up from $13 to $14 per column inch.
   "We did not raise rates per se because we are free," Ms. Kennedy said. "We have not changed our rates to cover inflation in the past three years, so this year we had to make up for inflationary costs."
   The Daily Princetonian is seeking to have more advertisements in the paper, but will continue to preserve its 40- to 50-percent ratio of advertisements to content, Ms. Kennedy said.
   The Daily Princetonian employs the Campus Newspaper Delivery Agency — a student agency that is part of the university’s Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Studies — for dorm delivery. The agency has a monopoly on newspaper deliveries on campus and is partially funded by the university.
   As a result of the increased distribution volume, the board of the Prince has expressed some concerns about the ability of the delivery agency to deliver to every dorm room. Some students have complained that they have not been getting the paper delivered.
   "It’s great to know that people value the Prince so much that we do hear complaints when people don’t get it," Mr. Sethi said. "On the downside, it troubles me that we haven’t achieved the 100 percent rate that we’d like to see."
   Ms. Kennedy said that the logistical task that Campus Newspaper Delivery Agency faces is the biggest concern in this transition period.
   "Right now we have to use (the agency)," Ms. Kennedy said. "But they could just throw up their hands. That is a concern. It is a concern that they do so poorly that we will have to find another avenue to do this."
   The Daily Princetonian penalizes the agency every time a student files a complaint that their newspaper was not delivered. Nevertheless, the performance of the agency is improving, Ms. Kennedy said.
   "Clearly CNDA is a student group and has issues because it is a student job. Their livelihood does not depend upon doing the job correctly," Ms. Kennedy explained. "But their performance started off from terrible to making small strides."
   The reactions from students, advertisers, and trustees have all been positive, indicating a successful transition, Mr. Sethi said.
   "There are people who want to have access to an intelligent informed readership and we offer them access to that market,"
   Now the priorities of the newspaper are to make sure that every dorm room actually gets a copy of the newspaper and to improve the newspaper’s Web edition, he added.