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An Exclusive Interview with Mark Zieman....

REDESIGNED KANSAS CITY STAR IS EXPERIENCING SKYROCKETING CIRCULATION

    They are smiling at the Kansas City Star these days.  Despite some high-profile critics (see Steve Rose column) of the newly redesigned paper, subscriptions are up well over 100 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Mark Zieman, vice president and editor in an exclusive interview with BLC.

      Zieman told us in a comparison of "starts" (how many people sign up for the newspaper) versus "stops" (how many people drop the paper), starts are up "well over 100 percent from the same period last year, while stops are actually down."

    Zieman notes that the Star won't have audited figures for at least six months, but said, "You can see that the response has been very positive."  He was not surprised that some people have complained about the new design.

    "With more than one million readers a week, even if we made only 5% of our customers unhappy, that would still be 50,000 unhappy readers," he said. "But actually the complaints have been in the hundreds, not thousands, and have been outweighed by praise -- as the circulation numbers would support."

    He says some of the readers' concerns have already been addressed. "Many of the complaints have been about specific issues, such as type size or the placement of certain features such as comics or puzzles, which we have since addressed."

    Zieman says most of Rose's column "was simply wrong."  He said readers wanting a full explanation of the reasoning behind the redesign of the paper can go to the Star's Web site: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/special_packages/redesign/14725787.htm.

    "Clearly, we value our loyal readers very highly and even tested this design with groups of them before we launched it," Zieman says. " We've heard from a great many who like it much better.

    "We do not believe, as Rose does, that print newspapers can't attract new readers. If that were true, we wouldn't have spent $200 million putting the best newspaper printing press in the world in downtown Kansas City."
(6/22/06