OCR Text |
Show Advertising in weekly newspapers ahead of dailies chants declared that the readership read-ership was "about the same as the dailies." The research project, "The Space Buyers Looks at the Community Press," provided local merchants with multiple choices on 23 questions designed design-ed to establish the image of the weekly newspaper in the eyes of the persons who support it with their advertising. The students created the questionnaire and conducted the interviews in an effort to get an indication as to the health of the community press in Utah. The students worked from the hypothesis that the success of weekly newspapers depends in a large measure on practices that insure the effectiveness of its advertising and wihch enhance en-hance the image of the newspaper news-paper in the eyes of those who buy space and place ads in the paper. Space buyers in Utah's community com-munity newspapers look on advertising ad-vertising in the weeklies as "reasonably" effective, and believe be-lieve that advertising rates in the weeklies are "about right" according to a survey made in November by students in Journalism Jour-nalism 131, The Community Press (advertising). Under directoin of Prof. M. Neff Smart, of the U. of U., the students interviewed 67 small town merchants in 12 Utah communities. All are sub- ' stantial advertisers in the community com-munity newspapers. The towns ranged from Tremonton to Gunnison along the Wasatch Front, and from Roosevelt on the east to Tooele on the west. The advertisers have reservations reserva-tions about the usefulness of weekly advertising representatives representa-tives as advertising counselors in planning ad programs. Over half of the merchants said that the weekly ad reps are "not particularly useful" in planning sales events or counseling in budgeting, layout and design of ads, and record keeping. Over half the space buyers said that the newspaper's ad represesn-tative represesn-tative was more interested in selling an ad than in selling the merchant's merchandise. The merchants rated readership reader-ship of the weeklies well ahead of Utah metropolitan dailies, although 24 of the '67 mer- |