Subscribers’ shift to digital edition continues in NW

The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has been converting about 73% of its Fayetteville subscribers from print to a digital replica of the newspaper, plus a Sunday print edition, publisher Walter Hussman Jr. told the Springdale Rotary Club in a virtual meeting held via Zoom on Monday.

Northwest Arkansas is the last part of the state being converted to a digital replica of the statewide newspaper. Hussman previously said the conversion should be completed in August, but on Monday he said that may be September instead.

The newspaper is furnishing an iPad to subscribers who want one so they can read the digital replica of the paper on the device. Customer service has been a key part of the conversion. Some older readers, in particular, have been reluctant to give up the print newspaper for a digital version, so newspaper employees show them how to operate the iPads.

Hussman said the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette conversion began in Harrison late last year, and had an 89% conversion rate there. Fort Smith was next.

“In Fort Smith and the five counties that are east and south of Fort Smith, we have had 100% of subscribers who have opted for the iPad,” said Hussman. “That’s pretty amazing. Now, not every single subscriber agreed to do it, but we picked up some subscribers in Fort Smith who wanted the free use of an iPad.”

Specially trained representatives had been talking to subscribers at meeting spaces, but Hussman noted the lack of such spaces during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Now we’re going home to home,” Hussman told the Rotarians. “We will go to people’s homes and deliver the iPad and show them how to use it. The first thing our person does when they go into a home is they wash their hands. We’re all learning a new way of doing business here.”

Hussman said he’s been to 25 or 30 Rotary Clubs around Arkansas in the past two years, explaining the iPad initiative.

He said many people who liked reading a newspaper in print decided they liked the reading experience better on an iPad after they gave it a try.

The No. 1 thing readers like about the iPad, said Hussman, is the ability to enlarge the print with their fingers. They can also touch the headline and have the iPad read the news to them.

All photographs are in color with the iPad, said Hussman.

The publisher said it’s easy to add content to the replica edition of the newspaper. He noted that Monday’s North- west Arkansas Democrat-Gazette included two full pages of photos of the Jonesboro tornado, along with a full page of Fort Smith news.

Hussman said he needs subscribers to pay $34 a month to make the newspaper profitable. In Northwest Arkansas, he’s doing that for some subscribers by raising the rate $1 per month.

The Northwest Arkansas shift to a digital replica follows a similar effort in the other 63 counties of Arkansas, where readers get the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Subscribers in Little Rock received their last Monday-Saturday print edition on Jan. 25. But the print edition for those days is still available for single-copy sales at some locations in the Little Rock area, along with the Sunday print edition.

Hussman is chairman of WEHCO Media, Inc., which is the parent company of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

and the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He is the publisher of both newspapers, which share content.

The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette covers news in Benton, Boone, Carroll, Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Logan, Madison, Newton, Sebastian, Scott and Washington counties.