Basic Marketing Research with Excel 3rd Edition by Alvin Burns,Ronald Bush

Exercise 6

The Daily Advocate Lost Subscribers Survey
The Daily Advocate is a newspaper serving the Capital City area, which accounts for about 350,000 households. The Daily Advocate has been the dominant daily newspaper in the area for the past fifty years. At one time, it was estimated that nine of ten Capital City-area households subscribed or otherwise bought the Daily Advocate. In the past decade, Capital City has undergone a growth spurt due primarily to three high-technology industrial "parks" where a great many Internet, computer equipment, and biotechnology companies have located. However, the circulation of the Daily Advocate did not experience a corresponding spurt; in fact, the circulation peaked in 1998, and it has been slowly declining ever since. It is now estimated that only seven of ten Capital City-area households subscribe to the Daily Advocate.
The circulation manager of the Daily Advocate commissions a market research study to determine what factors underlie the circulation attrition. Specifically, the survey is designed to compare current Daily Advocate subscribers with those who have dropped their subscriptions in the past year. A telephone survey is conducted with both sets of individuals. Following is a summary of the key findings-using a 95% level of confidence-from the study.

Why has the Daily Advocate 's circulation fallen in the face of a population boom in Capital City?