It’s been two years ago this week that The Storm Lake Times bought out the competing Pilot-Tribune and combined them into the publication you’re reading today.
It also marked the end of sometimes fierce competition that spanned three decades. Now the Times Pilot has grown into one of the largest non-daily newspapers in the state, with a combined print and online circulation of 3,586 households, which translates into readership of nearly 9,000 people. More people in Buena Vista County get their local news from the Times Pilot than from any other source, including social media.
The growth in readership is a result of our commitment to local journalism through comprehensive coverage. Over the past year we added three reporters, giving us six people on our news staff, who are out and about covering the news that matters to our readers. That’s way more than any other news organization for a community this size in the state.
Our website, www.stormlake.com, attracts nearly a quarter million visits every month, and we’re in the process of improving that so online readers have an even better experience.
This newspaper has had a tradition of service to the community for 154 years, making us the oldest continuously operating business in Buena Vista County. In fact, the Pilot began publishing in 1870, three years before Storm Lake was even founded. The pages of the Times and Pilot have seen it all.
IN ADDITION to the Times Pilot anniversary, we also celebrate ownership of our sister newspaper, the Chronicle Times in Cherokee, which was part of the deal when we bought the Pilot-Tribune.
Like Storm Lake, circulation in Cherokee has also increased thanks to improvements we made there. We added two reporters to the news staff and increased the number of stories and pages in each week’s issue.
When we took over the Chronicle Times its circulation was 970. Today it is 1,178, a 21% increase. Website traffic to www.chronicletimes.com has also grown.
And for full coverage of the Buena Vista and Cherokee county advertising markets, we offer the Ad Guide as well, which was also part of the deal when we bought the Pilot-Tribune and Chronicle Times. The Ad Guide is delivered every week to 13,000 households in Buena Vista, Cherokee, Ida and Sac counties and offers advertisers full market coverage of this trading area.
The weekly Aurelia Star is also part of our media empire.
THE PRINT newspaper — the backbone of our operation — still accounts for about two-thirds of our subscribers, but the percentage of online readers grows every month. We’ve had a website since 1999 — one of the first community newspapers in the state to offer that service. Now, as more people reach for their phones to connect to the world of information, we are delivering the news to these mobile readers as well.
With all the misinformation and crazy stuff that bombards you on social media, you need a trusted source for your information. That’s why we have all these reporters, who attend city councils, county supervisors, school boards, courts and what-all to let you know what’s really going on.
You never know what you can believe on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter/X. They haven’t been around for 154 years giving you the real scoop on what’s happening here. They’ve made no investments in Storm Lake or Alta or Nemaha. They don’t spend a penny in local property taxes to support our schools or cops or fire fighters. They don’t employ 18 people who pay income and sales taxes and support our local businesses.
Two years ago we made the investment to grow this business because we believe in the communities we serve. We appreciate your faith in us and thank you and your families for placing your trust in your hometown newspaper and helping us grow for more than one and a half centuries.
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