Newspaper Readership and Email Immediacy:
Can a print publication have its cake and eat it, too?

By Brian Carroll
Ph.D. Park Fellow
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Published in:
Convergence: The Journal of Research Into New Technologies 8, no. 3 (Fall 2002) Luton, England: University of Luton Press.

Every year there are new information devices and services competing for the public’s attention, in spite of the fact that already society is saturated with information.[1] A key question for information providers is how much a new medium can potentially take away from established media in terms of consumers’ attention, disposable income and advertising dollars, if any at all. If society indeed is at saturation, cutting-edge news delivery methods, products and services could threaten established media, since presumably people welcome help cutting through the clutter.[2] One of the many corporations trying to determine the seriousness of the displacement threat is the largest trade publisher in the United States, Cahners Business Information.[3] The media company is attempting to evolve from a traditional print media company into a publisher of electronic information not dependent on any one mode or medium of content delivery. Like the New York Times, CNN, CBS and other traditional media companies, Cahners believes that “in the future of information delivery, quality and brand recognition will transcend format and medium”[4] (Rose, 58). The challenge is discerning what to do on the internet with the content being generated by its approximately 1,225 writers and editors located at 48 news bureaus in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia.[5]

Migrating from print to on-line media has been a difficult, financially unsuccessful endeavor thus far for most media organizations. The lack of a consistently reliable revenue stream and the failure to satisfy information needs are two major reasons why.[6] Of equal concern is displacing dependable, existing revenue streams with the financial uncertainty of a new medium and a new method of news delivery. This study, one of the first to look at industry trade publishing on the internet, is an attempt to find out whether recipients of daily e-mail news updates from the leading U.S. furniture industry trade publication, Furniture/Today, spend less time with the weekly print edition as a result of receiving the e-mailed news. If they do, the free e-mail updates could be diminishing the value of advertising in the print edition, key concern of advertisers in the weekly newspaper.[7] To find an answer, 678 e-mail recipients of Furniture/Today’s eDaily morning news update were surveyed in March 2001. The study puts to an empirical test some of the key assumptions of the principle of relative constancy, which theorizes that consumers spend a relatively fixed amount of money on and time with media. This operationalization of the theory is from the landmark study conducted by McCombs and Eyal in 1980.[8] As a new medium diffuses, it can displace existing media in terms of the amount of time and money people spend on them. For the purposes of this study, for example, the key question is whether an hour spent weekly with eDaily means an hour less spent with the print version of Furniture/Today, which would suggest that eDaily readership is displacing Furniture/Today print readership.

Trade publishing industry

Despite the size of trade publishing in the United States,[9] journalism and mass communication research on business-to-business publications is virtually nonexistent. In examining readership of one of Cahners’ nearly 150 business titles, Furniture/Today, this study is an attempt to fill two voids. A pioneering study in business trade publishing, it also is an effort to provide empirical research in the area of relative constancy, something Dupagne found was lacking.[10] The study looks specifically at the functional equivalence assumption, which suggests that under certain circumstances an established medium or media can be cannibalized by new information sources and delivery methods.[11] The aims here include providing guidance for future site development, identifying the kinds of information business leaders want and the ways they want to access it, and suggesting fertile areas for future research.

Furniture/Today was selected for several reasons. The print weekly newspaper is the dominant business publication for the North American furniture industries with an advertising dollar market share of 73 per cent.[12] This near-monopolistic market position hints at the challenge faced by industry-leading publications: Deciding how much and what kinds of information to give away in order to pioneer a new medium or publishing vehicle when subscribers and advertisers are paying the freight in print, the medium potentially undermined by the new medium. In Furniture/Today’s case, subscribers pay nearly US$130 per year for 50 weekly issues,[13] while advertisers pay approximately US$9,400 for a one-time, four-color, full-page ad.[14] Furniture/Today also was selected because its parent company, Cahners Business Information, a division of London-based Reed Elsevier plc, is one of the largest magazine publishers in the United States.[15] In addition, Furniture/Today annually receives industry-best readership scores and boasts a very loyal subscriber base.[16] Annual renewal rates approach 80 per cent, equaling those of the Wall Street Journal.[17] The platform for generating interest in the eDaily e-mail news updates, besides the weekly print publication, is Furniture/Today Interactive, a web site that combines selected news content with internet-enabled services such as an e-mail directory, a hyperlinked URL directory of more than 1,500 furniture industry-related sites, and other services. It is a highly trafficked site with unique visitor counts of approximately 110,000 per month.[18] For context, the weekly print version is sent to approximately 22,000 subscribers throughout the United States and Canada.[19] In short, Furniture/Today and its site are models for other highly targeted industry news operations.

From ink to bits: Commitment to making the transition

            Recognizing the long-term possibilities, Cahners continues to invest in its on-line divisions, even though financial performances by digital companies in 2000 were largely a disaster. The New York Times’ internet division, for example, lost US$46 million through 2000’s first nine months but still received increased investment money from its parent.[20] Cahners, too, ramped up on-line efforts in 2000 in spite of difficulties finding reliable sources of revenue for web ventures. In February 2000, for instance, Cahners established a Media Division to focus efforts developing on-line editions of its publications, which also include Variety, Publishers Weekly, and Broadcasting & Cable.[21] More broadly, a May 2000 survey conducted by Editor & Publisher last year indicated that all of the nation’s largest newspapers would be offering news content on the web by Summer 2000, when the last, Investor’s Business Daily, was expected to launch.[22] In fact, 148 of the top 150 newspapers were offering on-line either all or most of the news stories that appear in their print editions by May last year.

After a relatively quick boom-and-bust cycle among startup media companies on-line, it is the larger traditional media companies that are considered to be best positioned to utilize the web to reach readers and generate revenues. The Committee of Concerned Journalists, for example, said the web sites of traditional media to be better positioned to exploit the web’s unique capabilities than internet portals.[23] Another advantage for traditional media is the established advertising base they bring to the new medium. Furniture/Today Interactive’s advertising revenues, for instance, come mostly from traditional advertisers. Despite slowing growth in on-line ad spending, these traditional advertisers continue to embrace the web with growing budgets.[24] According to statistics from Competitive Media Reporting, on-line advertising spending jumped 52.6 per cent in 2000 compared to 1999 to reach US$2.9 billion. Though a slowdown compared to 1999 over 1998, compare the increase to advertising across all media, which grew by less than 3 per cent in 2000.[25] With on-line ad spending expected to remain important despite the continued winnowing of weak dot-coms, trade publishers have great incentive to figure out how best to deploy their web sites to attract ad dollars. Most at risk, perhaps, is classified advertising. According to a survey conducted by Forrester Research in 1999, newspapers could lose as much as US$5 billion in classified revenues to internet competitors by 2003.[26]

In short, the task for Cahners is to redefine itself as an information-service company and not merely a trade publisher of print titles. Its future depends on delivering information services across multiple platforms. This same realization is driving convergence initiatives at The New York Times, The Tribune Co., McClatchy Co. and TV station and newspaper company Belo Interactive.[27] Newspapers, represented in this study by Furniture/Today, are hoping they can repeat the successful transition to a new medium the big radio networks performed when television came to the fore in the late 1940s. The newspaper companies’ leverage, like that of the radio companies before them, comes from having a familiar and trusted name, an established cash flow and a promotional platform in the established media to support the new media venture.[28]

            Much of the literature suggests that newspapers have a fighting chance in transitioning from traditional media to new. Fidler, for example, wrote that he believes newspapers will survive, even thrive, but only if and when they “complete their transition” to digital and away from print,[29] the kind of transition Cahners has stated as a primary goal for the corporation. Because manufacturing and distribution costs account for almost half the total cost of putting out a printed newspaper, Fidler predicts an almost total migration from ink-on-print to pixels-on-flat-screens.[30] The TV-like delivery mode Fidler predicts belies television’s inferiority to newspapers as the logical heirs to the readership of future news consumers. TV stations do not have news staffs to match those of newspapers. And, according to the On-line Journalism Review, which is published by the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism, no single local TV news site has yet reached 200,000 unique visitors per month, the minimum required for Media Metrix to track.[31]

            Trade publishers would seemingly desire a rational medium that reaches only the target audience participating in the markets and industries their titles are serving.[32] Electronic mail can be targeted with great accuracy and precision, and its social dimension has benefits, as well.[33] E-mail is low-cost and instantaneous.[34] Its growth continues at a rapid rate. And companies using e-mail newsletters have found that the service also benefits their web sites. After receiving an e-mail, readers often click to the site to get additional information.[35] As early as first quarter 1997, newspapers were warned that increasing e-mail sophistication, both in sending and in receiving (managing and storing), would affect newspaper readership.[36] A report from Forrester Research released in March 1997 now seems prescient. It read, “Newspapers will need to deliver early-bird e-mail editions for on-line customers.”[37]

Principle of Relative Constancy

            One of the biggest concerns for sector-leading trade publications is cannibalizing the print products with internet-delivered content, like the web-enabled eDaily news update from Furniture/Today. Several sources indicate that the fear is largely ungrounded, however. According to a Fall 1999 Competitive Media Index study conducted by the Newspaper Association of America by far most internet users in major markets still read the daily print newspaper edition, as well.[38] Commenting on the study, NAA president John Sturm said the print and on-line readership numbers “complement each other nicely.”[39] The NAA study notwithstanding, the debate surrounding the potential effects of the internet on the role of traditional media, especially print, is a heated one. Can traditional and new media happily coexist? There is conflicting evidence. McCombs generated a swell of interest in the question with his 1972 study, “Mass Media in the Marketplace,” which examined whether or not a new technology displaces traditional media in terms of consumer spending.[40]

In proposing the theory of relative constancy, McCombs found that consumer spending on mass media was relatively constant over time, fluctuating in close correspondence with rises and falls in the gross national product. For a new medium to prosper in the long term, an established medium or media will have to suffer, according to the theory. Studies such as that conducted by the NAA, however, conflict with McCombs’ observations and analysis. A readership survey conducted by a research consortium in third quarter 2000 found that on-line newspapers are not replacing print. Of the 24- to 54-year-olds questioned, 91 per cent said their readership of magazines had not changed as the result of access to on-line versions of the same publications.[41] Yet circulation is slipping at big-city papers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Detroit Free Press and the Miami Herald, all Knight-Ridder properties.[42] According to the Pew Research Center in a June report last year, approximately 33 per cent of Americans went on-line for news at least once a week, up from 20 per cent in 1998. During that same period, network TV news viewership fell to 30 per cent from 38 per cent and local TV news viewership dropped to 56 per cent from 64 per cent. The same report stated, however, that Pew “finds no evidence that internet use is driving down regular use of . . . daily newspapers.”[43]

The principals

The principle of relative constancy as an economic constraint can be traced to Charles E. Scripps, a newspaper publisher, whose company researched mass media expenditures between 1929 and 1957 and found a constant level of media spending relative to the general economy.[44] Because of the finding, Scripps speculated that mass media had become a staple in the American household much like “food, clothing and shelter.”[45] McCombs and Eyal followed up in 1980 by specifically examining consumer spending on mass media for the period 1968-1977, finding that the percentage of personal income spent on mass media was relatively constant for that period, as well. The conclusion, then, is that as one medium rises to prominence, popularity and pervasiveness, the previously dominant or leading medium declines, keeping household spending on mass media relatively constant. This macro view was upheld in research conducted by Donald Shaw,[46] who documented the peaks in usage and penetration of newspapers (1920s), film (mid-40s), radio (early 1950s), magazines (early 1970s) and network television (early 1980s). McCombs and Son found in 1992, however, that consumers, for perhaps the first time, were willing to spend more money on both traditional and new media.[47] This new view was reinforced a year later by Glascock, who studied spending on mass media for the period 1978-1990 and found that cable television had perhaps encouraged additional spending on media overall, that the media usage pie had actually grown.[48] Bromley and Bowles found that free or subsidized internet access did not reduce the amount of time spent with traditional media.[49] The London-based Henley Centre, a media thinktank, found that from 1987 through 1997, consumers spent about the same amount of time with and money on media, despite the proliferation of media choices that flooded the U.K. market.[50] People only have so much time to spend with media, or so it seems. The only variable, according to the Henley studies, is GDP. Over the past 10 years, Henley found that the amount of money spent on the media has tended to increase in line with the growth in consumer expenditure.[51]

A key aspect of the theory under special consideration here is the functional equivalence assumption, which holds that as new mass media products and services are introduced, consumers will in response alter their media usage and spending within media categories.[52] Dupagne (1997) revisited the theoretical assumptions of the principle of relative constancy from the perspective of economic theory. He found economic validation for the functional equivalence assumption, which holds that consumers are expected to change their spending patterns in response to the introduction of a new medium, even if their overall mass media spending remains relatively unchanged. But Dupagne did not find economic validation for the constancy assumption, which holds that consumers spend a constant fraction of their income on mass media over time. There is no economic theoretical basis for this assumption of relative constancy, Dupagne asserted, and the empirical literature provides only mixed support, as is discussed above. This study is a response to Dupagne’s call for investigating whether time spent on-line with an e-mail news format reduces time spent with traditional print media, in this case Furniture/Today, providing an empirical test of the functional equivalence assumption of relative constancy theory. According to this assumption, to the extent eDaily and Furniture/Today serve the same purpose(s), eDaily is a threat to Furniture/Today readership. Citing McCombs, Dupagne stated the assumption as stipulating that “to succeed in the marketplace, new communication technologies can only expand to the detriment of old technologies.”[53]

Research questions and methodology

To address the theoretical as well as methodological concerns raised by previous research, and to pioneer research in the area of business journalism, this study looked at whether or not e-mailed news updates threaten readership of the publication’s weekly print edition. To that end, the study seeks to answer the following research questions:

(1) Do recipients of daily e-mail news updates from furniture industry trade publication Furniture/Today spend less time with the weekly print edition?

(2) Does Furniture/Today have a legitimate fear of cannibalizing print use with its web-enabled e-mail news product? Or, are the weekly print edition and the e-mail updates complementary?

To answer the research questions, an in-depth case study was an obvious choice for methodology, especially since the cooperation of Furniture/Today’s editorial staff and parent company, Cahners Business Information, had been secured. The case study is an ideal methodology for depth of knowledge, and findings about one case can help decision-makers involved with one similar.[54] Aikat showed in 1988 the effectiveness of the case study approach when studying usage trends of an on-line newspaper, Philadelphia Inquirer On-line.[55] Because it is a single case study, however, there is danger in extrapolating the results. Furniture/Today is to some degree representative of trade journalism, but generalizations should be made with great caution. A major strength of this method is that by looking at a single entity, detailed and specific data is available. Tracking the time spent with a type of publication or electronic information delivery service across category for would be an arduous, problematic task. This case study relied on a survey of 678 recipients of Furniture/Today’s eDaily. As of 10 April 2001, 5,432 individuals were registered to receive the daily e-mailed news update.[56] The survey was sent out in March 2001 to 5,200 individuals; 678 responded for a 13 per cent response rate.

Findings

            The survey results suggest some displacement of readership by the eDaily morning e-mail news update, but little change in the overall value placed by subscribers on the weekly print edition of Furniture/Today. However, a clear majority of respondents reported “no real change” in their reading habits since they began receiving the eDaily, suggesting a complementary relationship at some level.

The first research question concerned whether recipients of the daily e-mail updates spend less time with the weekly print edition. Put in terms of functional equivalence, since the eDaily and the print version provide similar content, the question is whether the survey recipients’ time spent with the weekly print edition is being diminished by consumption of the eDaily? For the readers reporting less time spent with the print version, advertisers could rightly be concerned that Furniture/Today readers were getting less exposure to their advertising. According to the survey results, 57 per cent of subscribers who responded (218) and 52 per cent of all Furniture/Today readers responding reported “no real change” in print readership since they began receiving the eDaily. Since the eDaily contains only a few news stories each day, and rarely in their entirety, it can be reasoned that for those reporting no change, the eDaily “teaser” content is not enough to change weekly reading habits. Among the 43 per cent (165) of subscribers responding that there had been a change in reading habits, 51 per cent (84) said they spend “less time reading the print version.” This is logical since it would not be necessary to re-read those articles in print that had already appeared in the daily e-mail news updates during the previous week.

About a fifth of Furniture/Today’s weekly print subscribers who responded to the survey, the paying subscribers, reported spending less time with the print version. It is this segment that advertisers are most concerned about. Another eDaily survey would be needed to, among other things, determine whether this segment is growing, which is likely. The number of eDaily subscribers has steadily grown,[57] and the service is becoming increasingly sophisticated in terms of the content it delivers. Of all of those reporting to read Furniture/Today on a weekly basis, which includes subscribers and those who read someone else’s copy, 52 per cent reported no change in the time spent reading the paper. Of the 48 per cent of readers reporting a difference, 47 per cent said they are spending less time reading the print version. Of the same 48 per cent among readers reporting a difference, 10 per cent said they spent “more time reading the print.” It is possible some re-read in print the news already delivered to them during the week by e-mail or, with some of the news out of the way, spend more time than before with the larger features and reports. Of the 43 per cent of subscribers reporting a difference, nine per cent reported spending more time with the print.

            But the survey results are somewhat at odds. When asked if, since receiving eDaily, whether the print version of Furniture/Today was more important, less important, or about the same, 75 per cent of subscribers responding said it was “about the same” (see Table A). Another seven per cent said the print was “somewhat more important,” while three per cent checked “much more important.” In other words, for 85 per cent of the subscribers who responded, the print version was either as important or more important to them since they began reading also receiving the eDaily each day. For all readers, which include subscribers, the percentages were comparable – a composite 83 per cent reported the print version as being about the same or more important to them.

Table A: Though readers report spending less time with the print edition, they also, confusingly, report by a wide majority no change in the importance of the print edition to them.

Cannibalization

            The second research question asked whether Furniture/Today’s publishers have a legitimate fear of cannibalizing print use with their web-based e-mail news product. The results suggest they do, but not with much definition, since only a fifth of respondents reported spending less time with the main advertising vehicle, the weekly print edition. More precisely, of the 51 per cent of all respondents reporting a difference, only 40 per cent reported spending less time with the print version. The remaining 60 per cent reported either no change or an increase in the importance they place on the print version. The survey was not capable of illumining how less time spent with the newspaper could also mean either no change or even an increase in the importance placed on the newspaper. It is possible that the eDaily piques interest in the more comprehensive print coverage. The eDaily updates include only breaking news and often the coverage is direct from the wire services with minimal editing. The weekly newspaper is almost exclusively staff-written and rigorously edited. It is possible that the eDaily is read by many for immediacy, but that the print version still is counted upon for context, detail and commentary. The eDaily keeps its recipients “in the loop,” but the print version, because it is staff-written and its stories are lengthier, is counted upon for industry decision-making. At least that is one hypothesis, one that could at least in part explain how less time spent with print could actually increase its importance. When making decisions or researching an issue or question, with less news to slow the reader down since that news had previously been consumed from the eDaily, it could be reasoned that the process of making a decision or conducting the research had been enhanced.

Choosing a delivery method

The survey also asked of the features and elements of the print version, “which would you like more of in either of the electronic versions?” The eDaily and the FurnitureToday.com web site are the trade newspaper’s two electronic versions. Again, the results are confusing, at least for advertisers reconsidering where to put their dollars. The features and elements subscribers were quizzed about included “featured editorial stories,” “breaking news,” “product-specific information,” “fashion news,” “business/financial news,” and classifieds. For breaking news, the category of information the eDaily was developed to deliver, 90 per cent of subscribers said “put more in eDaily” (see Table B). This is logical since the eDaily’s raison d’être is immediacy. By contrast, only 1 per cent said they wanted it in only the print edition. For the other categories, the percentages of subscribers calling for more in their eDaily e-mails ranged from 16 per cent for classifieds up to 67 per cent for business/financial news. Interestingly, the web site scored very low relative to the eDaily.

Table B: When asked where they wanted to see more “breaking news,” 90 per cent of Furniture/Today subscribers said they wanted it in eDaily, underlining the perceived immediacy of that delivery method.

The three mutually exclusive choices – “print version only,” “put more in eDaily,” and “put more in FurnitureToday.com” – for Furniture/Today subscribers responding the web site registered a high of 15 per cent for “product-specific information” and a low of nine per cent both for breaking news and fashion news. What muddies the waters are the results are the responses to the question, “If you could receive the news from Furniture/Today in one form, what would it be?” A dominant majority – 71 per cent of subscribers – responded by identifying the print version, which compares to 23 per cent for the eDaily and just 6 per cent for the web site. As long as the eDaily is distributed and/or the web site is hooked up, however, the question is a moot one. The responses for the aggregate of subscribers and those who read someone else’s copy varied little from those of only subscribers.

What is clear from the survey is that the eDaily has caused changes in readership patterns. When asked how their reading of Furniture/Today had changed in print since receiving eDaily, 55 per cent of print subscribers reported reading eDaily stories first, which makes intuitive sense (see Table C). They receive the coverage in eDaily before getting it in print. The effect is that 41 per cent of print subscribers also reported concentrating in print on the stories not included in the eDaily updates. The eDaily apparently doesn’t whet these readers’ appetites for more of the same.

Table C: The question posed was, “If there has been a change, in what way has your reading of the print version of Furniture/Today changed since you started receiving eDaily? (multiple responses permitted)” Subscribers reported reading eDaily first and spending less time with the print version.

Conclusions

That there is only so much pie and more people sitting down to eat means smaller slices for everyone is overly simplistic. A new medium doesn’t necessarily shrink the amounts of time and money people have for traditional media, as some research in relative constancy theory suggests. The different delivery systems serve different purposes and, as this study shows, can coexist and even complement each other. As the results also suggest, for many the eDaily serves a different role, one of immediacy and keeping its recipients current on industry news. Readership of the weekly print edition holds up since it contains more of everything – more of the individual stories previously distributed through the eDaily and more content in general. Recipients of the eDaily report that they love the immediacy of the news, but that immediacy doesn’t preclude more thoughtful consideration of furniture industry news in the weekly print editions, an echo of Marshall McLuhan’s familiar maxim, “the medium is the message.”[58] The characteristics of a medium can alter the nature of the messages it transmits. An e-mailed news alert is a different message than the same news presented in print with extended commentary and accompanying charts and tables, for example. Different media serve different uses, contexts, and even moods. The eDaily is sent to e-mail boxes and, therefore, must be read on the computer. The tabloid-format print edition can be spread out on the table, taken on the bus or train, or read in bed.

            This study indicates that Furniture/Today’s publishers have a legitimate fear of cannibalizing print readership with the web-based e-mail news product they are promoting, however not to the extent one might have assumed. The study also suggests that advertiser concerns about the depreciation of the print version and, more importantly to them, their own advertising in the weekly are premature, at least as they concern a majority of Furniture/Today readers. Future studies are needed to see if readership displacement of the print version by the eDaily is increasing and, if it is, to what extent. Additional study also is required to catalog and analyze what makes the print version important to readers since, as a majority of survey respondents indicated, increasing eDaily content has not yet made the print version less important to them. A time series would go a long way toward more clearly establishing a cause-and-effect relationship consistent with the functional equivalency assumption.

            Research also is needed in the area of advertising expenditures and strategies. Advertising pays the freight for most media outlets, so it would be important to research their spending patterns through the lens of functional equivalence, as well. Are advertisers earmarking more for on-line efforts, including e-mail campaigns and services, and, therefore, less for traditional media campaigns? How direct and proportionate is this relationship, if indeed there is one? At what point are advertisers willing to pull the plug on print and switch to new media vehicles?

            For media companies like Cahners, the proposition is a tricky one. Internet and e-mail use continues to grow, both in numbers of users and amount of time spent per user of each. Meeting readers where they are or want to go is more effective than luring them where a publisher wants them to go or preventing them from migrating away from an increasingly outmoded vehicle. However, as was documented, Internet advertising has lagged behind Internet use. A big question remains – how to enable and equip electronic information delivery methods to pay their own freight without subsidy from the established print vehicle. Another question asks how much effort and money should be plowed into a new delivery method when its success, given the lag in advertising, could significantly undermine the older, money-making print vehicle. More research clearly is needed.

Appendix

The eDaily survey form was distributed to 5,200 registered eDaily subscribers and returned by 678 total respondents, a 13 per cent response rate. Of the 678 responding, 383 were print subscribers to Furniture/Today and 100 did not receive the print newspaper. The remaining 195 were not subscribers, but had access to the newspaper and reported reading it on a weekly basis.

The survey included the following questions and verbiage:

The writers and editors at Furniture/Today want to make both our eDaily and FurnitureToday.com more useful to you. Please take a few minutes to tell us about your reading habits and what you'd like us to do to give you better products.

All survey information is strictly confidential and will only be used in the aggregate for research reporting purposes.

1. Do you currently read the print edition of Furniture/Today?

No

Yes - Subscribe Myself  

Yes - Read Someone Else's Copy 

2. How long have you been a subscriber to eDaily?

 Since it launched in July (2000)

 For 3-5 months

 For 1-2 months

 Less than a month

3. How has your reading of the print version of Furniture/Today changed since you started receiving eDaily? CHECK ALL THAT APPLY

No real change

Read eDaily stories first

Spend less time reading the print version

Spend more time reading the print version

Concentrate on stories that did not appear in eDaily

Only read stories that weren't in eDaily or FurnitureToday.com

Other, please explain:

4. Now that you receive eDaily, how important is the print version of Furniture/Today to you?

Much Less Important

Somewhat Less Important

About the Same

Somewhat More Important

Much More Important