Hello again.
This time: new forms of news publishing as a threat and an opportunity.
Reports of the death of newspapers might be premature, but there are some alarming figures indicating that they are indeed heading that way. Declining profitability, falling circulation, falling advertising expenditure.
The economist reports that there has been a significant change in the way consumers get their news, especially younger consumers, who get most of their news for free, online. With the recent focus in the graphs to the right, the recession probably hasn’t helped either. Circulation has been falling in America, western Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand for decades.
Most people wouldn’t pay to access newspapers online, just as they would not pay to see free TV online. Yet some people are willing to subscribe to Pay-TV.
As the New York Post reported in 2007, the New York Times decided to end their TimesSelect arrangement of charging for access to well-known writers (who protested that their readership was being restricted), which they began in 2005 when other papers were already abandoning such schemes. Both News Limited and Fairfax Media that will soon be charging for access to online content.
And as an essay on DigitalJournalist pointed out, papers are still the largest producers of news content, but are not profiting from it. Of course, being forced into a new, more versatile medium is to some a grand opportunity.
A plausible portent of the medium falling out of favour, the oldest currently published newspaper in the world (Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, founded as Ordinari Post Tijdender in 1645), ceased publishing hard copies for distribution in 2007 edition, and is available only online.
Cinemas in the 1950s and ’60s were threatened by free-to-air TV. Cinemas and movie-makers changed adapted and survived. Like free websites today, advertising on early television stations was not profitable enough to survive, and the US Congress was lobbied for over-the-air pay TV (not unlike the BBC’s Television License Fee). Since then, free TV has become very profitable – and most people are still watching it, at least while Australian Internet is sub-par. The difference between ads on television and online media is that sponsored content can be eliminated by the consumer very simply.
You can click the image at top right to enlarge it.
Concerning trends
Lastly, I’d like to finish this post by linking you to Crikey’s Newspaper Death Watch, plotting the fall into a world where “government becomes less accountable and society becomes stupider.”
Of course, the ABC will always be there to tell us that the whole thing is exaggerated.
Images:
http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/the-death-of-the-newspaper/?display=wide
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0910/circling-the-drain.html
Interesting discussion! It led me to consider the situation.
While it is, to some degree, saddening to observe the downfall of such a rich tradition, I am pleased to acknowledge that a great many trees will be afforded relief by such a decline.
That is not to say that digital media is a particularly “greener” alternative, however; the carbon footprint of digital news must take into account the resources mined to build computers and networks, the consumption of – largely fossil fuel derived – electricity, and other such factors.
Still, the decline of newsprint means less tree harvesting, which is certainly a good thing for the environment.
By: Reginald Mason on November 4, 2009
at 11:13 pm