A local public media organization had been investing considerable resources into its newsroom, leveraging a highly-trusted brand and ownership of multiple content platforms (TV, radio, and digital properties). New leadership at the organization sought the assistance of City Square Associates to develop a data-driven strategy for growing its audience in the coming years, and connecting its unique news content with news consumers from the market that have the appetite for it. The broad idea was to have audience research that would answer this fundamental question: Which groups within the general population show the best potential for becoming regular consumers of their news content, and what would it take to reach them?

Building on previous ethnographic research we had conducted on their behalf among local news consumers, City Square Associates designed and fielded a survey-based audience segmentation study. The idea was to move beyond anecdotal and directional findings, obtain insight that could be projected onto the general population with a high degree of confidence, and develop a model for identifying and thinking about the “unreached reachables”—people who rarely turned to them for news, or are otherwise unaware of them, but who nonetheless exhibit an appetite and affinity for what they offer.

A survey, which collected data on lifestyle attributes, demographics, media habits, and news interests, was completed by a representative sample of over 1,000 adults from across the market. This rich dataset was used to build a segmentation model—using Latent Class Modeling—that resulted in 7 unique “news consumer” segments. These segments were ultimately profiled in an interactive microsite designed by City Square Associates to make it easy and engaging for members of the organization’s staff to drill down on each segment, learn what makes them special as news consumers, and identify the most promising tactics for reaching them. Several of these segments were identified as high-priority on the basis of how their interests, habits, and affinities aligned well with the content and identity of the brand. Since then, senior leaders and newsroom staff alike have become thoroughly familiar with these segments (by name!) and have developed editorial, marketing, and platform strategies designed to better reach these slices of the population. This study also encouraged a cultural shift at the organization that encouraged decision making at all levels to be more data-driven and audience-centric.