Ken Doctor of research and advisory firm Outsell has written a research paper, Deadline With Destiny: Newspaper Industry Faces $20 Billion Gap, which analyses the challenges newspaper publishers face thanks to the impact of online and sharp declines in sales due to generational change. Check out the description:
In this HotTopics, Outsell predicts that the newspaper industry faces a $20 billion revenue shortfall over the next five years due to print circulation decline, pressures on print advertising and pricing, and rapid growth of lower-revenue-producing online news media. Outsell believes the industry has less than five years to remake its future.
Across at his Chew Shop blog, newspaper executive Brad Robertson provides a deeper insight into Doctor’s paper:
The biggest change agent for newspapers, of course, is the march of online services. As print declines, online has assumed its position as the fastest growing business in newspaper portfolios, with annual growth rates typically more than 30 percent.
and…
Going forward, as online becomes more dominant, the challenge is for newspapers to use online to make up for their inevitable print losses. That’s easier said than done.
Robertson’s blog is a must read for newsagents and anyone who makes a living off newspapers. I’d suggest the report is worth reading as well but I’m not paying the US$495.00 to read what I know – that newspaper sales will be flat at best for the next three years before they start to seriously fall. Okay, it may take a little longer in Australia because of our useless broadband/wireless coverage we have but it will happen. Newsagents and others need to take this into account in their business planning today.
This report from Ken Doctor is another weather forecast. There is a storm coming. It’s big. It will hit. There is time to be ready, time to lock in customer traffic with other products and even by embracing. This is one reason we are launching our Find It online classified business and why we are partnering with newsagents as our shop front.