It is difficult to see through flying debris when caught in a severe storm. Adrenaline can take hold and propel the endangered to safety. Others succumb to panic, confusion and fear.Such is the state of the newspaper industry. We are caught in a storm of change. Our business model is in doubt, technology is shifting our delivery system and consolidation by huge public corporations and overleveraged private companies has endangered professional journalism.
Ryan Blethen, editorial columnist and the Seattle Times, has written an interesting opinion piece about the challenges facing US newspapers.
While we feel far removed from these challenges here in Australia, there is dark news about newspaper circulation in the numbers released late last week – although newspaper publishers would have us believe otherwise.
Newsagents need to monitor year on year sales for newspapers, broken down by segment: foreign, national and local. While the bushfires and floods impacted our February / March numbers, overall the trend is down, not dramatically, but down.
The best action we can take in the circumstances of a decline in interest in newspapers is to ensure they are displayed proactively – probably in two locations, keep costs (real estate and labour) associated with them to a minimum, use them to drive other sales and track the results. The key is to engage. Even though I see the decline continuing, proactive engagement could soften the impact of the decline.
I also think newsagents need to debate whether a contract with newspaper publishers is necessary. My concern is that the industry will be caught up, once again, in contractual issues at the cost of more timely business opportunities.