CHICAGO Publishers seek readership with little-seen youth tabloids

New paper boosts profits, but young adult readers are slow to buy it.
NEWSDAY
The newspaper industry's effort to woo young people in Chicago with trendy tabloids has produced mixed results so far.
Tribune Co., which last fall introduced the youth-oriented RedEye, said this week that advertisers had embraced the daily paper, but readers remained reluctant to pay for copies. RedEye aims to serve adults, ages 18 to 34, who don't pick up its big brother, the Chicago Tribune.
"The real challenge when launching a paper like this [is] getting an audience that's not used to paying for content to come up with a quarter," said chief executive Dennis FitzSimons. "The real progress has been with advertisers. We've added a lot of new advertisers who don't normally advertise in the [Chicago] Tribune," he said.
FitzSimons' remarks came during a conference call with stock analysts to discuss Tribune Co.'s second-quarter earnings. He said profits in the April-June period doubled to $229.5 million compared with a year earlier. Sales also rose 5 percent to $1.45 billion. The company owns Newsday, the Los Angeles Times and other papers.
Watching readership
The progress of RedEye and rival Red Streak, an edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, is being followed by publishers across the country. The tabloids cost 25 cents per copy, though they were initially distributed for free on street-corners for months.
Nationwide, newspaper readership among 21- to 25-year-olds dropped 20 percent last year from 45 percent in the early 1970s, according to Northwestern University's Media Management Center.
Other papers also are targeting young people. Last week, the Washington Post Co. announced plans for Express, a tabloid available at commuter train stations beginning next month.
At Tribune Co., executives are pleased with the new ads RedEye has garnered. They now just wish more readers would pay for the paper.
RedEye has attracted more than 150 new advertisers which means more space. Each issue now averages 48 pages, said spokeswoman Patty Wetli.
RedEye distributes 80,000 copies daily with "the percentage of those that are paid continuing to rise steadily," she said, adding that home delivery began in mid-April.
John Cruickshank, editorial vice president at the Sun-Times, declined to provide comparable data for Red Streak, though he said most of the circulation stems from sales at vending machines and stores.
He added, "We felt we had to mirror them because they were coming into our market."