Newspaper subscriptions in the US are important as shown in the tweet about what Arthur Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times said at the World News Congress this week. That growth in subscriptions from 5% – 10% 20 years ago to over 50% now is extraordinary.
Subscriptions are vital to newspapers. They provide the best opportunity for migration to digital. While retailers are not in that model, newspaper publishers need to serve their needs first. This push also puts the needs of journalism ahead of ours and I am fine with that.
We need to be accepting on this transition as it will happen regardless of anything we can influence.
Mark,
I reject your following sensationalised comments which don’t relate in any way whatsoever to the article you draw our attention to, just THE HEADLINE:
“They provide the best opportunity for migration to digital.” and
“We need to be accepting on this transition as it will happen regardless of anything we can influence.”
The article you draw our attention to talks about the good business sense of The New York Times who are doing very well in securing their place in our industry. They have a focus in their business in “curating” their news stories to match digital needs (re-write & re-shape to suit mobile phone screens). It’s a good article, thanks for drawing my attention to it.
Your dramatic comments proposing the imminent death of newspapers are (insert any word here from disappointing through crap to laughable)
While the long long long term outlook for newspapers is bleak, they will not die in our business life-time, or even in our life life-time.
86% of Australians read a newspaper at least once a month.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW) and The Age (Vic) both have just recorded year on year increases in readership.
In the UK, more than half of their daily papers recorded month on month increases in circulation in the first few months of this year, and over a third recorded year on year increases.
Darren I reject the labels you place on the post. There is no drama and no sensationalisation. I am not proposing anything other than what I say in the last line which I stand by.
Here is a link to the latest UK circulations FYI: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/05/mail-on-sunday-sun-on-sunday
Maybe the decline in newspaper sales is only in newsagencies because of all the “giveaways” and different venues to purchase one now, diluting sales for all retail outlets.
This dilution into other channels is increasingly making newspapers more unprofitable and it will soon will be time to get rid of them completely and put something in that actually returns a profit and generate traffic of REAL shoppers.
The decline in circulation for print media is only one side of the story , advertising revenue is the biggest challenge.
Do the audited circulation figures include all the newspapers which are given away at special events or to schools ect
Spot on Mark. Regardless of circulation (which in our store has more than halved over 12 years despite a growing population), papers live or die from advert revenue. The Age had ICPOTA years ago and the herald sun was also full of advertising but now not only are there less adverts, I would expect the income per page for adverts is also down. I know for a fact that real estate adverts in local papers are now far cheaper than 15 years ago.
Interesting that the change from broadsheet to tabloid was a very difficult one for the publishers as the page cost for
broadsheet advertising was (naturally) double the tabloid and the publishers were
very concerned about that loss of revenue or the potential for a huge loss of revenue.
Circulation means very little to newspaper companies except to use the figures to lure more advertisers to their product.
That is why hotels and airports and all sorts of other venues had free papers in them.
Unfortunately newsagents in a lot of cases think that they/we are important to the publishers – sorry! we are not.