Who reads the Shepherd?

The 1000th issue of the Shepherd Express was published this past week, and to that I say congratulations to 20 years in print.

In the monumental issue they claim:

...the Shepherd Express has 261,400 readers, making it the third largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin. But unlike the daily newspapers, the Shepherd’s readership continues to grow.

The Shepherd has a press run of around 75,000 issues. Having over 260,000 readers is based on an assumption that each freely distributed issue is read by nearly four people.

That readers-per-issue number seems small to me.

Nearly every Shepherd newsstand I see is still stacked with close to 20 unread papers on the day before the next issue is set to hit the stands. And this is in downtown Milwaukee and the East Side. I can only imagine how many go unread in Brookfield and Mequon.

Which leads me to wonder if maybe 20 people are reading every issue.

Or is the number just that far off?

Now the Shepherd wouldn't be in business were it not for its advertisers. Since the paper is free, advertising dollars, along with a small number of subscriptions, account for most of its income. And in the last ten years I've watched the amount of advertising in the paper grow enough to add nearly 30 pages to any given issue. Having once sold advertising for the paper, I can say with a fair level of confidence that it's the advertising that caused the growth, and not an increase in editorial content.

But even then I'm forced to ask if advertisers really believe they're reaching the audience the Shepherd claims to have? Or are they just willing to spend such a premium per-reader rate?

Either way, it's their money.

I still get the paper for free.