The study focuses on media
innovation in metro newspapers in the US, in this case the major newspapers in
cities such as San Diego, Boston, Philadelphia and Dallas. The situation for
metro papers is difficult, as they fall between the national newspapers (NY
Times, Washington Post) that can aim for extending their reach, both nationally
and globally, and the local newspapers that have a smaller cost structure and
can cater to a more limited and more engaged audience community.

The master frame in the newspaper
industry crisis debate is that the appropriate response is to be found in
innovations, new business models and better ways to reach out to audiences
(Brüggemann et al., 2016). However, a continuous and aggressive innovation
activity may be challenging for newspaper publishers who often need to break
loose from the old paper production model. Organizations tend rather to
reproduce the concepts of past successes, focusing on incremental changes,
rigorous brand alignment, and top down-monitored, commercially steered
activities (Järventie-Thesleff, Moisander, & Villi, 2014). Media executives
often hesitate to make bold high risk moves because the landscape keeps
changing so fast (McDowell, 2011). In the paper, the accuracy of these premises
is studied in the context of US metro newspapers, in order to describe the
contemporary background for innovation activities in newspapers, as well as
actual outcomes of innovation processes.

The study combines market and
financial performance data with qualitative interview data. The research team
has carried out data collection in the spring of 2017. The quantitative data
covers years 2005 to 2016; this timespan corresponds well with the accelerating
digital transition in the newspaper business. The qualitative part of the study
consists of semi-structured in-depth interviews (N=25) with CEOs,
editors-in-chief, and other managers in US newspaper companies, and also with
expert representatives from newspaper associations and universities.

Preliminary findings
indicate that the newspapers are rearranging existing business models rather
than experimenting with radically new forms. 
Imitation and copying are core elements of media innovation (Boczkowski,
2005), but examples of breaking the barriers of legacy media are rare. However,
for instance in the case of Dallas Morning News there is evidence of rather
radical innovation. Based on the findings, the metro papers are suffering from
the loss of audience and income more than local or national newspapers. As the
metro newspapers have a limited space for expansion, they have to innovate in
generating new sources of income and versatile pricing models for
subscriptions. A common new source of income is organizing events, which serve
also in community engagement. However, these incremental innovation processes
might not be enough, and there might be a need for newspaper organizations to
innovate themselves altogether, aiming for a completely different model of
newspaper publishing.