The Talkeetna Times is a semi-monthly newspaper that serves the Talkeetna, Alaska area. Scott Anderson from the paper answered Mediabids' questions. 

(MB): Five years from now what role will publications like yours serve? For example, some people predict a complete migration to the web for many types of publications, do you? 
(TT): We are a community newspaper based near Talkeetna, Alaska. In addition to serving the communities of Talkeetna and nearby Trapper Creek, our distribution area includes the communities of Willow, Houston and Big Lake and Caswell, as well as the rural areas between, primarily along the Parks Highway corridor. We also have a sizable secondary distribution in Wasilla, which has been the fastest-growing area of Alaska for several consecutive years due to its proximity to Anchorage and the lower cost of living (mainly housing) compared to Anchorage.
From the Talkeetna area, we are approximately a two to two and a half hour drive from Anchorage, depending on traffic and road conditions. Our area also is growing, though not quite as fast as Wasilla. Many people from Anchorage have cabins in this area -- we're just about at the limit of the distance many people want to drive for short weekend getaways, etc. Our area's first full-service grocery just opened in December. Prior to that, we had to drive to Wasilla -- usually about an hour and a half each way -- to get many of the grocery items we needed. There are still many other goods and services that are not available here that require a trip to Wasilla, and sometimes to Anchorage. This includes medical appointments that require seeing a specialist, dentists, eye care, etc. We can get prescriptions delivered here, but it often costs less to drive to Wasilla to pick them up -- we try to plan such trips so we're doing other necessary things as well.

People here depend on the newspaper, and our one local public radio station, for their news. With the grocery just opening, the outlook is bright. It will draw other needed businesses to the area as the population continues to grow. Many retirees are choosing to live here year-round due to the lower cost of living compared to many other parts of the country.
We have made numerous improvements to the paper in the year and a half that we have been here, and more are in store. We have changed from once a month publication to every other week (26 issues per year), and are looking at the possibility of going to some form of weekly publication. We also currently publish two annual publications -- an annual visitors guide each spring, and a Talkeetna area phone book that includes all communities from Big Lake and Houston to Nenana, pretty much along the entire Parks Highway outside of the larger communities.

 We completely revamped our web site in spring 2008 and are continuing to make improvements to it, as well as to add new features. The Anchorage Daily News recently made several staff cutbacks and reductions in its print edition, and the Frontiersman, based in Wasilla and published thrice weekly, recently pulled all of its news stands from all communities north of Houston. These changes can only help to strengthen our position as the leading print source for news of our communities.

(MB): What sort of measures has your publication put in place to either conserve costs or boost revenue?
(TT):  In addition to the things outlined in question one, we are looking at adding a couple of other publications when the timing is right. These are niche market publications that currently have no comparable publications in our immediate area. As with all publications, regardless of publication schedule, we have to keep an eye on costs to be sure they don't get out of hand. We staff only to the level that budget allows, which often means doing more of the work ourselves when we would like to hire someone else to do the work. We're also constantly on the lookout for outstanding sales people, a difficult position to fill in our market. But as long as we keep looking, eventually we will find the right staff and, we hope, be able to structure the compensation for sales staff in a way that benefits both them and us.

(MB): Do you have any significant changes in store this year?
(TT):    I believe most were outlined in question #1. Of course, we will continue to look at other ways of doing business; at some point, we plan to start publishing catalogs for others. First, however, we need to acquire some additional software that allows us to do so efficiently.

(MB): What was your most successful advertising initiative in the past 12 months?
(TT) : By far our most successful advertising "initiative" is our annual phone book. It's small, but it is far and away the most popular phone book in our area (even staff MTA, our local phone cooperative say so). Our second most successful advertising approach is to convince advertisers in Wasilla and Anchorage of the need to advertise in our area because they have a product or service that is not available here.

(MB): Do you have tips for other publications about the best way to integrate print and web sales?
(TT) : We're still trying to figure this out ourselves. We do offer package deals to advertisers who advertise in all of our print publications, or some combination of them, as well as on the web. The packages vary, depending on how many publications and how often the ad runs, but the best deals go to those who advertise in all of them.

(MB): How does your publication hire and, even more important, retain top sales personnel?
(TT) : A tough job in our market, and we're still trying to figure out what works best. Our situation here in rural Alaska is different than most other areas, where there is usually a larger city, not necessarily metropolitan, nearby.