Conferences take different approaches to publications
Newsprint isn’t dead in United Methodist Conference publications, but it is in a constant state of change, and approaches to communications between the Conferences and local churches varies widely between Conferences.
Last fall Missouri Conference communications asked other United Methodist communicators to complete a short online survey regarding information about their Conference publications. Responses were received from 40 Conferences.
A few outliers jumped out of the spreadsheet when the numbers were compared. The Nebraska Conference has the largest circulation of any Conference news publication, at 42,530. This is in a Conference that has a weekly average worship attendance of about 30,000, and a membership of 78,000. There are literally more people receiving the Nebraska United Methodist paper than there are attending United Methodist Churches in Nebraska.
The historic precedent behind the large circulation numbers was that since Nebraska is a large area geographically, the Conference wished to communicate directly with as many United Methodist in the state as possible, so people feel connected to the Conference, and not just part of a lone church. The frequency of publication has been decreased through the years for budgetary reasons, and the publication now is only published four times a year.
No other Conference comes close to circulation numbers this high. The next highest is Upper New York, with a circulation of 18,184 on their monthly publication. This is about 10 percent of the membership of the Conference, although it must be considered that the newspaper is shared within the household by multiple members, so a much higher percentage of overall membership is being reached.
The only other Conferences with a circulation greater than 10,000 are Illinois Great River (12,000), Arkansas (12,000) and Susquehana (11,000). Susquehana publishes six times per year, Illinois Great River publishes monthly, and Arkansas publishes 16 times per year.
In terms of sheer volume of local news produced, South Carolina leads this category, publishing about 30 pages of local news 12 times a year, for a total of 360 pages. Next would be the Virginia Conference with 240 pages, the Illinois Great River Conference with 216 pages, and the Missouri Conference with 208 pages.
Most conferences with a print edition also either post their publication online or send it out as an e-mail. Typically, this is a PDF replication of the print addition. In most Conferences the online edition of the Conference newspaper is available to readers for free, but in Virginia and South Carolina they do have a subscription charge for viewing the online edition.
Of the Conferences responding, 27 publish a periodical print publication and 13 do not. Nearly all of the non-publishing Conferences reported that they used to publish a print publication, but had to discontinue it due to a decreasing budget. Some of the Conferences that are currently publishing went from having a regular newspaper to a digitalonly publication, and have since returned to a print publication after local churches complained about feeling disconnected from their Conference and other churches.
Of the 27 Conferences publishing a print publication, 20 (74 percent) accept paid advertising, although most also reported that they don’t seek out advertising, and advertising revenue accounts for a very small percent of the publication budget. The price of a half-page ad ranges from about $300 to $1,000.
Nearly all of the print publications are paid for either by the Conference budget or paid directly by local churches. Individual subscriptions paid for by the reader typically account for a very small percentage of the subscription base. The average subscription rate is $15 annually.
Many Conferences, whether they produce a print publication or not, send out some kind of newsletter via e-mail. The typical frequency on these e-newsletters is weekly.
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