Decline of Newsprint: On Track to Oblivion

[xcel]

How long can publishers afford to print?

Alan D. Mutter - NEWSOSAUR - Jan. 13, 2010

John V. pointed out this one to me this afternoon… Not good and all but inevitable. -- Ed.

Unless advertising pulls out of its spectacular nosedive and rapidly begins to grow again, publishers may find within a matter of years that they cannot afford to keep printing newspapers.

While there may be a sufficiently large audience of people interested in buying newspapers for a decade or longer, the high fixed costs associated with producing and delivering newspapers suggest that some publishers may not be able to sustain print products for as long as demand holds out.

I arrived at this sobering conclusion by trying to project the profitability of print newspaper publishing for the next 15 years. The projections, which involved several moving parts, necessarily depended on a number of arbitrary assumptions, as detailed below.

But the projections clearly indicate that publishers pursuing a business-as-usual approach to the newspaper business may find their print operations, in the worst case, to be unsustainably unprofitable within five years... [Read More]

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Using the venerable radio pioneer broadcaster Paul Harvey’s famous tagline “The Rest of the Story”, the newsprint decline saga continues. -- Ed.

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The incredible shrinking newspaper audience?

Alan D. Mutter - NEWSOSAUR - Oct. 15, 2012

Once the definitive mass medium, newspapers – in both their print and digital incarnations – have shrunk to being niche players in the typical market, according to a number of must-read research reports released in the last few weeks.

With approximately a third of adults in the average community saying they use either a print or digital edition of their local paper to stay informed, newspapers today remain “super niches,” a term I heard for the first time a few years ago from Ron Mulder, who now works at Scarborough Research. But a distinct lack of interest in newspapers among those under the age of 50 suggests it is only a matter of time before the niche turns from “super” to “sliver.”

As detailed in a moment, a steadily accumulating body of research shows that consumers are using computers, mobile devices and even Facebook to shop actively for news and information…

… Based on the 6.6% drop in newspaper advertising revenues in the first half of this year, industry-wide sales likely will be no better than $22.5 billion in 2012 – or less than half of the industry’s peak production of $49.4 billion in 2005… [Read More]

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Now match up the industry’s current Ad Revenues with the chart posted from January 2010 above… -- Ed.

[ALS]

I stopped using the local newspapers when I'm looking for help. I'm sorry but $240 for a six line want ad is a little ridicules. I learned one major fact on the one paper here in town everyone that I pulled in told me their mom, dad or grand parent all over sixty told them about the help wanted ad. I now use Craigslist and hey, free is good. The best part I get a better candidate and younger applicant.

[chilimac02]

Agree with above. I rent houses through craigslist within a week of listing them and its a free service.

I use an rss reader for my news, anything else is "old" by he time you read it. I pick good sources in my interests and get the latest and greatest of what I care about for free in realtime.

[RichXKU]

The last time I bought a newspaper was July 2008, when I was on the front page.

I bought about 5 of them

[xcel]

Hi Al:

At those ad rates, they put themselves out of business!

Justin, what do you think about our News? Too much PR? Not enough Tech? Too much trucks? Too much sales news? Too Much Safety? ... etc.?

Rich, you didn't

I do like reading the WSJ when a fellow traveler is through and I ask if I can read his or hers, I find one laying on an empty seat on an airplane or airport but the web and twitter are just far to fast.

Wayne

[WriConsult]

Doesn't take an "expert" to know a lot of newspapers are doomed. Newspapers used to live off advertising, especially the classified section, and with craigslist around why would you bother taking out a newspaper ad that won't come out for a couple days and no one will read anyway?

And I don't think it's "a matter of years" ... for many papers, the end may come sooner. Paper Newsweek is already dead. Our local paper has already dropped the Saturday edition, and rumors have been flying for some time that the owner is going to cut several of its papers down to 3 days a week.

I used to pay a few bucks a month for home delivery, and I'd gladly pay the same amount for the same content online. But if I look at the online version of my newspaper -- or any newspaper -- I bet I can't access a tenth of the content that's in the print edition. Most papers' online editions have this stupid "waterfall" layout where you might be able to browse by topic (local, national, sports, etc.) but beyond that the most recent story appears on top and pushes everything down the queue. The deeper content that's buried behind the front page of each section of a print paper doesn't even exist online.

The only way -- IMO -- newspapers will be able to save themselves and justify charging money for their content is to provide the deep content of their print editions -- all the way down to birth announcements, book readings at the local library, briefs of all the deadly car crashes and climbing accidents, obituaries, detailed sports standings and the local-interest city-council-race stories buried on pages 4 and 5 of the "B" section -- in some sort of layout that encourages browsing. I'm sure it can be done, but so far no one seems to have pulled that off.

Hell, I can't even find all of the advertising of the print edition online. Just TRY looking around online and finding all the ads from your local car dealerships that go into the Friday/Saturday print editions. Or go to the newspaper's online edition and try to find the local Macy's ads that take up a quarter of the printed A section and are what's basically keeping the print version (almost) afloat. Listen up, newspapers: sometimes I WANT to see the ads that your advertisers are paying dearly to show me, and I can't find them. Talk about a broken business model!

So meanwhile, newspapers keep laying off reporters, and would lay off half the rest if they only needed to fill their online content. But they keep a bunch of them still on the payroll to fill the paper edition, which hardly anyone reads anymore, while readers of the online editions are clamoring for more content. DUH! Figure this out, publishers!

[Ophbalance]

We get the Sunday paper, and really it's just for the ads and coupons. Everything else, there's an app for that.

[Indigo]

Maybe it's my Wiccan sensibility, but it seems to me that actual *printed* newspapers are so incredibly wasteful. It wasted trees, causes a lot of pollution, and can be a fire hazard. I think it is much better to read the news on a device that will last 2-3 years instead of on a format that is literally thrown out every day.