To me it’s about lack of consistency in coverage. Totally understand you may not be able to commit to away game coverage but it’s disappointing when the hometown paper doesn’t even have coverage of a home win over a ranked opponent it’s disappointing.
That’s a complete failure in my book and said to me well
Unlike some though I understand that you can ignore the ACC coverage of schools in the triangle as I would suspect the analytics have always shown it to be a large draw.
If you say you need readers to read and subscribe, then it’s has to be made worth it to those people first. Has to be some investment on the O end to say we think we can get 1000 more Charlotte fans to subscribe but to do that we are going have to spend more upfront. Have to draw those readers back in and make a push to them personally. At this point people have to be shown it’s not just a one off thing but a true investment.
BTW…Kudos for coming on here and having the balls to ask the question and take the heat. But if you don’t see how much damage was done from your end (The Observer…not you personally) and how much work would need to be done from your end (again the Observer not you personally) then there’s really no reason to discuss this any further.
The sub is 15/mo I think, which is less than I pay for Netflix or about one Chipotle run (I like double chicken) and the beautiful thing about subbing is you get more than one thing: you get digital and our E Edition which is like home delivery, plus our Xtra section, which is national news sports politics and lifestyle coverage, like a better form of USA Today. It’s really cool with all the standings and stats you can stand.
And there are always specials running and/or you could do with us what I see a lot of people doing with our things they sub to: sub for the months you’re interested in. It’s easy to cancel.
On micro subs, we used to do that for sports only, was like 30/year but they stopped that. I know they’re working on what might be an a la carte type thing.
For us to hire a full timer to do the last part, things would have to change pretty drastically from where they are now but there’s so many Charlotte people in Charlotte.
Langston, I agree with the true Insider take. I’d love for Hunter to be that guy. I feel like there are some bridges to mend between the AD and the Observer as well. AsI recall, Judy Rose got pissed off when the Observer dared do their job and ask some tough questions. I believe she cut you guys off at that point aside from press releases. If you can mend that bridge with Mike Hill and Chancellor Gaber, that’d be a draw, I think.
LangstonW, I was told many years ago that “You dance with the person you take to the prom”. The O has never taken or asked us to the prom and why should we all of a sudden think you will change simply by coming to this board and state that, oh wow we covered you this fall. We cannot simply ignore the past while we were completely invisible to you. The O is going to have to show they are going to cover Charlotte as Charlotte’s team as they mean it. Old feeling are not easily changed without an honest and sincere effort.
Hell we need the observer to call out the AD sometimes. Definitely could have used some help when we should’ve started football earlier and when Judy kept riding us into the ground with her bball hires. We could’ve used the O’s support saying that we, the fans of Charlotte, deserve better.
See my post above. Believe this happened a few years ago over football and Judy cut them off and would only let them have official press releases. We haven’t had anyone really cover us since, though IMHO Hunter certainly tried.
There are a lot of scars in this relationship and not all of them involve the fans. Some are between the O and the AD.
I know this isn’t up to you guys but your corporate overlords, but a micro subscription, say a few dollars for just Niners coverage, would be intriguing. Agent 49’s insider site was $3.
This. This. This.
I am a student here at Charlotte. I love my school and loved what Agent 49 did. It kept me engaged and quite honestly, increased my screen time greatly, making me a borderline addict to CLT athletics. I was just about to subscribe when he ended things. If there was an individual able to dedicate their time to our school and get that “inside scoop”, I would bring out the ramen noodles to afford it (at a fair price).
Side note: The city of CLT is irrelevant to me, I have always lived and still live eastbound, so a $15 subscription to see a lot of unimportant info is not worth it to me. Give me a $6 subscription for consistent coverage, solely on the school, and I’m locked in.
Plainly put, beaten dog syndrome for 20+ years. Now we’re getting a treat dangled to us and you wonder we don’t run right out and be your BFF?
Perception is reality. The O has never really covered us like they should consistently. Many times we were bumped by schools up the road. I get the readership thing but if we’re not going to receive equal billing as the hometown team good or not why wouldn’t we go get our news elsewhere? So the fan based perception is the O soured the relationship. The onus to fix it is on you all which would likely mean a better than average coverage blitz for a sustained amount of time. Good stories. Not just the AI AP write up. The O has to earn the trust back.
Langston, it’s been mentioned, but it would be worth popping over to Discord too. It’s very active. I posted this thread there, but a lot of that crowd never makes it here.
Thanks for asking the question and bringing insights and the economic facts for your (observer) point of view.
I used to be a long time subscriber of the O from 1991 till mid 2000s. I dropped it for a couple of reasons:
Next to zero coverage of the Niners on any subject sports, academics, etc
Printed edition, which I loved to read at breakfast, became a joke
Paper got smaller and bill got higher
Sections I liked sports, business and comics shrunk
Pharmaceutical ads became half the paper
Paper was over the top liberal in scope
Online version was not attractive to me because of 1 and 3 above
I would reconsider online if I felt Charlotte University news was there consistently. Will get my news elsewhere otherwise.
My 2 cents, I think if you expect to write a few stories and see meaningful Observer traffic and readership trend change and immediate ROI, after years of neglect, it’s very unrealistic.
As the saying goes, it takes years to build trust, seconds to destroy and forever to repair. Only, the Observer spent years destroying this relationship.
If you want to grow readership among Niner fans and alum, it’s going to take quality reporting, and persistence. You have to play the long game. ROI and analytics may not look great the first few years. But, the total addressable market of Niner fans and alum is big, and only getting bigger. Better late than never.
I do not think anything can be done for me to purchase a Charlotte Observer subscription. The newspaper model is a dying model.
However, I am curious on the numbers. How many were reading the stories written in the fall? What numbers do you need to keep it up?
I do not think covering Charlotte 49er sports will drive subscriptions. If we are not seeing the value now, adding Charlotte 49er coverage will not change that.
One option, could Be to have an internship where a Niner journalist could cover the Niners. I would think you would need less viewership and subscriptions in the beginning, while you build the base up over time.
In addition to everything else everyone has said, these days the problem is Mcclatchy. The Charlotte Observer is no longer about Charlotte. I don’t have a subscription but occasionally read it online with my library account. The majority is Mcclatchy stories from other metro areas or national articles. And the Niners are rarely mentioned. Hell, I’ve heard more about our bball run from WFAE (yeah, the local NPR channel) than I have from the observer.
I’ll try to keep my opinion like Mike P kept our coverage: brief. LW’s premise is that Charlotte doesn’t get covered because it doesn’t garner clicks. Isn’t the purpose of a news organization to cover the news? Charlotte paper covering the closest major university should be the absolute minimum, not some elusive carrot on a stick to drive incremental subscriptions.
