Newspaper supporters have, over recent years, pointed to Warren Buffet and his investment in newspapers to support their view that newspapers have a future. This, yesterday, from Crikey:
How Warren Buffett abandoned newspapers. Rather than sell or close his 70 or so weakening newspapers now clustered in BH Media, CEO Warren Buffett has decided to outsource the management of 30 daily papers to a rival print group in middle America. The deal shows he’s all but abandoned newspapers. Under the deal, Lee Enterprises, an Iowa-based regional newspaper group, will manage BH Media’s 30 dailies for the next five years for a fee of US$50 million. Lee owns 46 dailies and more than 300 other publications. BH Media’s print circulation has dropped about 15% since 2015. It has struggled to build digital subscriptions and advertising as audiences have shifted from print to online.
Buffett told CNBC earlier this year that be believes only two newspapers, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, are assured to survive the current climate, because people will pay for them online.
The 15% circulation decline mentioned in this piece is less than the decline achieved by many Australian capital city newspapers in the same period.
We need to run our businesses to not rely on newspaper traffic whatsoever.
While I do not want newspaper sales to decline or daily newspapers to close, the former continues apace and thew latter will happen. The only reasonable topic of discussion is when. This is why every newsagent needs to fortify their business to ensure it can withstand the decline in shopper traffic following the closure of a daily newspaper or more.
The way we do this is by attracting new traffic. This can be done anywhere. While it is hard work, it can be done.