Cablevision Systems hopes it has found a way to boost circulation at its newest acquisition—Long Island, N.Y. newspaper Newsday—by allowing customers to purchase subscriptions to the paper via their television sets.
Cablevision said Monday that it has launched Newsday TV on channel 611 in its systems in the Long Island area, allowing iO TV digital cable customers to instantly subscribe to the newspaper using an on-screen order form already populated with the customer’s name and address.
The Newsday channel features both 7-day and weekend delivery options (Thursday, Friday and Sunday) and promotional information on the paper’s various sections and benefits. Long-form videos of some recent Newsday stories are also available on the channel.
“With an on-screen subscription form that is pre-populated for each customer by virtue of our ongoing relationship, our customers can complete a transaction and subscribe to Newsday’s award-winning coverage with just a few clicks of the television remote control,” said Cablevision’s senior vice president of product management John Trierweiler in a statement.
Cablevision said that it plans to promote the channel to its Long Island cable customers through television commercials, on-screen banners and other marketing tactics. When viewers press the “subscribe” button on the channel, they are taken to a form that includes all of their own subscription information – name, address, town, zip code and phone number – and a drop-down menu from which to select a specific subscription option. Newsday will bill the customer separately, starting shortly after the subscription begins.
The channel launched earlier this month, shortly after Cablevision completed the acquisition of 97% of Newsday Media Group through the formation of a partnership with Newsday’s former owner Tribune Co. The purchase price was about $650 million.
For the six months ended in March, Newsday circulation dipped 4.7% according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Daily circulation for the paper is about 387,000 and its Sunday circulation is about 452,000.
