Ben Compaine has written an excellent piece across at Corante (an excellent unbiased source) discussing how newspaper companies may respond to the continuing fall in advertising revenue. Of course, newspaper companies are responding. One only has to look at their spend in the last year. Locally, Fairfax and News have been very active with their cheque book. Their acquisitions make sense for them. I continue to worry about newsagents in that their channel was created by the publishers and continues to be treated in a servant like manner in key areas. Newsagents ought to have the freedom to develop their own entrepreneurial skills and they ought to be rewarded for success.
The Corante article is interesting in the context of the AAP story yesterday reporting that SEEK feels that online employment revenue could pass print in 5 to 10 years. I’d put my money on less than 5 years. Current online employment advertising is expensive. My companies have used SEEK exclusively for more than six years and while the service is excellent, a charge of $135.00 plus GST does not respect the operational cost model of the Internet fairly. But that’s a discussion for another day.
While newspaper publishers continue to pour resources into their online classified models, they would do well to invest in reinventing the print model if only to slow the impact of online. Australia, through its unique newsagent channel, would be an ideal place to experiment with an alternative newspaper classified offering. Engaging with newsagents on this could leverage a needed viable life extension.