Council goes back to printed news letter as no appetite found for digital edition

Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council is to relaunch a “one off” test run of the ‘City Wide’ magazine due to “incredibly low” views of the local authority’s online version.

The printed magazine costing £30,000 is now due to be posted to 60,000 households in time for Christmas with the last online efforts attracting just under 120 views last spring.

In chambers, UUP councillor Nicholas Trimble said: “I do recall we previously scaled back from sending one out to every household and the decision was made to go digital.

“Clearly there is now evidence that there is no appetite for digital. What has changed to make it more worthwhile to go back to print?”

A council officer said: ”The data shows that the digital viewing is so low, we want to try to get this important information about council services out to as many households as we can.

“In terms of finding out how many people would read the hard-copy, that would be difficult to capture and unfortunately some will go in the bin.”

A report before the chamber shows online reading of the council seasonal newsletter plummeted on a downward spiral from an initial 1,650 in the winter 2024 edition.

Alliance Alderman Owen Gawith said: ”As part of the older demographic that is listed, the over 65s, a hard-copy is something that we benefit from quite a lot and a preferred thing.

“For those who grew up pre-digital, real pages are the thing for them.”

Sinn Fein councillor Ryan Carlin added: ”I quite liked the hard-copy City Wide when it came round, it was good to have something tangible in your hand.

“It’s easy to see the lack of engagement on digital because of the data from online and some of the online views we have are incredibly low and basically negligible.

“The cost of the printed version is quite sizeable and perhaps we might be better off putting that £30k into advertising on Facebook to reach a much bigger audience.

“We don’t know if people look at the printed version or if it is just stuck in the bin or even how much they have read.”

DUP councillor Uel Mackin said: ”I certainly had questions when we went down the digital route and I think that time has shown whilst there are many advantages to digital, it’s not successful across this piece.

“Put something through my door I would at least have to go and lift it if I am going to put it in the bin out the back door.

“But, on that journey I would see something that might capture my attention, so the front page is important.

“So if we have something to sell then let’s emblazon that on the front page to draw people in to read the other pages.

“For 50p a household I think it’s not an expensive outing to have.”

The committee was told that the response to the test run would provide a potential case to bring back the hard-copy City Wide magazine on a full time basis.

CEO David Burns responded: “We felt going back to a paper copy would give us an opportunity to engage further with our communities to find out whether they would prefer that hard-copy and to give us better returns on any competitions we run.

“What we are finding is that the digital copy isn’t.

“Perhaps the last time round when we were doing the printed copy it was not the most successful, but it was far more successful than the current way of engaging, which is limiting our ability to promote the good work happening across the council.”