Our readers enjoy a lot of company

The following was originally published in The Record.

Whether you read The Record online or in print, you have a lot of company.

While headlines about declining circulation and falling revenues in the newspaper industry might suggest this isn’t our industry’s golden age, the reality is much better than one might be led to believe.

Roughly three-quarters (74%) of U.S. adults – nearly 171 million people – read a newspaper online or in print during the past week, according to a recently-released survey from Scarborough Research, an audience ratings measurement company. When you filter the data for economic and education variables – attention newspaper advertisers – the results are even better. Some 82 percent of adults with household incomes over $100,000 read newspapers each week, as do 84 percent of college graduates.

So if so many people are reading newspapers, why are they reporting circulation is down? There are a variety of reasons: more people are reading online; fewer households are receiving two or more different newspapers in markets where there are (or there used to be) choice; pass-along rates (people or households sharing a paper) are higher; and more people are reading fewer days each week (late-week editions – Thursday through Sunday – seem to be more popular in some markets).

Adding to the confusion is the fact that marketing-wise, the daily newspaper industry has done itself a disservice over the years. We count households while radio and TV industries count viewers and listeners, respectively. While the eyeballs watching the average TV show or ears listening to the average radio station are getting incredibly small (with the average home receiving almost 120 channels, the majority of cable TV shows reach less than one percent of U.S. adults; ditto for the audience of many radio stations during any particular 15 minute period), newspaper audiences have remained significant. As new audience measurement tools (counting readers and not household) attests: Newspapers are truly the last mass media.

The Record’s readership today is significant. Our print product reaches 41,595 readers on the average weekday and 43,274 on the average Sunday; across seven days 73,235 people read our newspaper, according to a Scarborough survey conducted locally this year.

And http://www.troyrecord.com/ grows our audience further. Unduplicated readership of our print and online readership combined is 46,192 on any given weekday and 48,112 on Sunday. Over the course of a week, 95,148 local people read our daily newspaper and/or web site.

None of these statistics include our three weekly newspapers, which drives our local, weekly unduplicated readership over 100,000.

So as 2010 fast approaches, I am very optimistic for our newspaper and its ability to recover from this recession. In my next column (Jan. 3) I will add to the list as to why 2010 will be a terrific year for all stakeholders in The Record – employees, readers, advertisers and the communities we serve.

But today is a fitting time to say "thank you" for reading The Record, and to wish that the peace and joy of the holidays be yours.

RPI's integral role in our Tech Valley

The following was first published in The Record.

The cumulative effect of a number of developments over the past decade – from the creation and expansion of alternative energy-related businesses such as Latham’s Plug Power to the start of construction of Advanced Micro Devices’ $3.2 billion computer chip fabrication plant at the Luther Forest Technology Campus – signaled that the Capital Region is earning the moniker it is marketing as America’s new Tech Valley.

Along the same timeline, Troy’s own Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has quietly transformed itself into a world-class technological research university with global reach and global impact.

How intertwined are these developments? Well, without the latter, the former may never be fully realized.

America’s premier technology corridor, the Silicon Valley - grew mainly from its proximity to Stanford University in nearby Palo Alto. With respected engineering and electronics departments, the university establish in 1951 the nation’s first research park where companies could build facilities and conduct research in cooperation with the school. The seed was planted – with much nurturing and support from Stanford - for a phenomenal run of technological and economic achievements over the last six decades; without Silicon Valley, there may be no Facebook or iPod in our lives today.

When RPI president Dr. Shirley Jackson announced “Renaissance at Rensselaer: The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute” 10 years ago, I suspect few entirely grasped her vision for the campus. And there were skeptics who thought the $1.4 billion fundraising goal might be too aggressive.

Her effort was a nod to the college founders’ The Rensselaerean Plan, a statement 185 years ago that gave form to a vision for applying science to life’s common purposes. Here are just a few of the game-changing components of the modern-day plan:

• Expand the school’s fundamental research activity in technological entrepreneurship and the management of innovation.
• Introduce the teaching of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship to students across all majors.
• Cultivate a campus culture that provides the spirit and motivation for inventors to pursue commercialization.
• Create innovative programs targeted at growing major new technological ventures and creating value.

And for evidence of the impact of “Renaissance at Rennselear” today, look no further than some of the headlines of just the past 60 days: “Space Shuttle Atlantis will carry a new Rensselaer nanomaterials experiment to the International Space Station.” “Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute receives $16.75 million from the Army Research Laboratory to launch a new research center devoted to the study of social and cognitive networks.” “Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have received $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to model how different metals are affected by neutron irradiation.”

Our newspaper has chronicled over the last few days – and will continue to tomorrow – a few highlights of both the impact of the Renaissance campaign and a celebration taking place this weekend on the campus commemorating its completion. Sometimes it is hard to recognize in the moment but this is a historic event in our community … an opportunity to reflect on some truly significant economic, academic and technological developments, and to ponder what is to come.

This investment is going to - well, there is that word again – transform this region over the coming years in ways we can’t begin to imagine. Over time, RPI’s contribution to the Tech Valley will be no less significant than Stanford’s to the Silicon Valley. We join this weekend in reveling in Dr. Jackson’s and all of the Rennselear community’s extraordinary accomplishments.