![]() Fairmont is the county seat of Martin County, which dropped from a 1990 population of 22,900 to just 21,530 in the 2000 census. It’s virtually unchanged today at 11,300. When Andersen joined the Sentinel nine years ago, Fairmont’s population was 11,265. The company uses a free-distribution shopper, “Sentinel Plus,” to reach every household within a 40-mile radius. “We capture 78 percent of Fairmont households,” Andersen said. Nearly eight of 10 households subscribe to the newspaper. The Sentinel’s subscriber base is particularly strong within the community. It means “building on our strengths, our editorial product and our subscriber base.” It means finding other products and services to sell, especially commercial printing. ![]() This winter brought a surprise competitor for advertising dollars as some stores dipped into their advertising budgets to pay unexpectedly high heating bills, according to Andersen.Īdjusting to a growing number of competitors and a shrinking number of advertisers means “leaving no stone un-turned” in the search for advertising revenue, according to Andersen. Advertisers have many different options and they have all kinds of people pulling at them.” There’s probably 10 radio stations coming in here now, all selling advertising. “There are many more media options for advertising today. “We’ve had to adapt,” Andersen said, and not just to a smaller pool of advertisers and readers. Moving a 127-year-old daily newspaper down the road to greener pastures isn’t an option, so the Sentinel has little choice but to stay and fight. That kind of erosion can be harmful to the health of a local newspaper. We’ve lost downtown merchants and our mall has suffered,” Andersen said. “We rely on the farm economy around here and when farmers suffer, it reflects on our community. In many ways the booming ’90s skipped most rural areas, where population shriveled, retail stores closed and farm families left the land. Fairmont, long regarded as one of Minnesota’s most attractive little cities, lost some of its shine in recent years. For a businessman trapped in a shrinking market, Gary Andersen remains remarkably optimistic.Īndersen is publisher of the Sentinel, a daily newspaper that’s been serving Fairmont and its surrounding trade area in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa since 1874.
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