Sun readers want local news, trust their paper: Survey

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This article was published 10/07/2018 (2743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Local news matters to readers of The Brandon Sun, a survey conducted earlier this year reveals.

The 2018 Brandon Sun Readership Survey found that 65 per cent of respondents read the local news section first, while a majority — 58 per cent — said they are most interested in local news features.

The survey was based on 438 responses, 258 of which were done on paper and 180 online.

With subscriptions having stabilized over the past couple of years, including a 14 per cent increase in online subscriptions, Brandon Sun publisher Jim Mihaly said that it appears to be due to the amount of local stories appearing in the paper.

“It’s nice to have the international and national news, but (the readers) want local content, bottom line,” he said, “and we’re showing that in our results.”

The majority of respondents — 74 per cent — were over the age of 56 and most — 69 per cent — were already Brandon Sun subscribers.

Asked how they prefer to read their news, nearly 84 per cent of people said through print, followed by three per cent on a desktop computer, six per cent on a mobile device and eight per cent through the E-edition.

Mihaly said he was heartened to see a variety of people from various age groups respond to the survey, including both subscribers and non-subscribers, as well as those who still want a hard copy of the paper.

Asked which news organizations they trusted to give accurate information — respondents could choose more than one — 364 votes were cast for The Brandon Sun, while CTV News received 306, CBC radio and TV received 258, CKLQ and Star FM received 250, and The Westman Journal received 153.

“If we don’t have the credibility then … we’ve lost everything,” Mihaly said.

As a recent example, Mihaly pointed to the downtown fires in Brandon over the May long weekend.

“People wanted to go where they knew the facts were accurate, and they went to us, and that says a lot about us,” he said.

The survey also included a ranking of which features readers liked most. Mihaly said those will be looked at as part of an overall redesign of the paper.

“We can’t please everybody, but we need to make sure we’re doing the right things,” he said.

Fifteen per cent of respondents said they buy a newspaper every day, compared to approximately eight per cent who said never, six per cent who said two or three times per week, and three per cent who said weekly.

The survey results also showed that 59 per cent of respondents spent 30 minutes to an hour reading the news on any given day.

Of the Brandon Sun features people liked most, daily editorials, Sound Off, letters to the editor and Rural Roundup topped the list, with 53, 49, 48 and 47 per cent of respondents ranking them as the “best,” respectively.

The daily TV guide and Whizword were among the “least favourite” features, with 62 and 61 per cent of respondents, respectively, indicating as much.

» mlee@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @mtaylorlee

View Survey Results