Most print papers dead within 5 years

[Warren Toda]

A ten-year US study, to be released in January 2012, looks at the "digital future" for that country.

“After 10 years of studies, we find that the strengths as well as the consequences of technology are more profound than ever,” said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future.  “At one extreme, we see users with the ability to have constant social connection, unlimited access to information, and unprecedented buying power. At the other extreme, we find extraordinary demands on our time, major concerns about privacy and vital questions about the proliferation of technology – including a range of issues that didn’t exist 10 years ago.

One of the study's conclusions:

Most print newspapers will be gone in five years.

“Circulation of print newspapers continues to plummet, and we believe that the only print newspapers that will survive will be at the extremes of the medium – the largest and the smallest,” said Cole. It’s likely that only four major daily newspapers will continue in print form: The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.  At the other extreme, local weekly newspapers may still survive.

“The impending death of the American print newspaper continues to raise many questions,” Cole said. “Will media organizations survive and thrive when they move exclusively to online availability?  How will the changing delivery of content affect the quality and depth of journalism?”

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The only people who say print papers have a future are (1) newspaper owners and (2) advertisers who rely on newspapers.

There's no solution if you love the problem.

[Warren Toda]

Study released this week by Pew Research Center looked at the private financial data of 38 US newspapers. For those with short attention spans, here's the short version.

Some doomy and gloomy quotes:

...the papers studied are losing seven dollars in print advertising for every one dollar they are gaining in new digital revenue...

Another executive told us bluntly, "There's no doubt we're going out of business right now."

Yet another [newspaper executive] said flatly, "The newspaper industry cannot sustain its existing cost structure now. It's a fact of life. It is going to have to get leaner than what it is."

Then he described what he imagined as the news product of the future at newspapers: "You can think of it in terms of probably one-third original content, one-third blogger opinions and one-third community journalism [generated from] outside."

Another [newspaper executive] flatly predicted ... that some papers would go out of business in the near future, that surviving dailies would go to three-day-a-week distribution and that most of newsrooms would shrink even further than they have already.

[Ken Gigliotti]

  The core of our business is still information . The main problem is , former ownership sold “high” . The two major chains realized early that “advertising based media” had no future and acted decisively . The valuations for the businesses are the biggest problem for ownership . The debt on these companies is high .When  they drop to fair value , the  strong print business , Thursday , Friday and Saturday , and  with the online  creating a constant stream of information , even Warren Buffett might  find value.
  There is no lack of interest in our product , that being news. News can only be gathered one way . I think if we see ourselves as an information business we will just be absorbed into other information business . Television and radio are all suffering  the same loss of revenue .
  The universities and colleges are now  producing multi media reporters , change is coming but news gathering can only be done with boots on the ground . The weakness of the anonymous internet is manipulation . I don't think we are far away from political parties  and  what ever other dark forces will begin to find a foothold and people will seek legitimate journalism brands. We just have to find it ourselves  and abandon the  old formulas . There is movement already .
  Our goal should be to inform , enable and enrich  our readers .These are lofty  corrections . New media will allow for  creating and merging many media in a manageable form without the infrastructure of TV networks , and large press based companies .
  I think that the vision and ideas of writers and photographers will still be able to capture the imaginations of readers , this will never go out of style. Wages will drop , this has only been at high pay level since the mid 1980's . Ask anyone in your newsrooms that are ready to retire what kind of maney thay made  in 1980. I made $200 a week in 1979.
  We have to look at content , find young readers , new Canadians ,and hold on to middle aged and older readers. Online products , many products streaming from  one integrated  newsroom.
 The monopoly of ideas has to change , the  collective creativity is overwhelming our craft . A craft that fears change as much as our business needs to find a higher level to exist on . WE cannot stay the same , travel the same ground  and repeat the same stories . Our readers want what they have always wanted , they want surprises . Our product is the letter they used to receive from an old friend everyday. It is not just about news , sports and  weather.

[Moe Doiron]

One should keep in mind that the fledgeling online revenue is heavily burdened by the money-losing weight of the printed paper. Almost half of the costs related to producing a newspaper go to paying for paper, ink, print plant contracts, trucking, circulation and the good old paperboy (person). They don't make that back by selling papers they offset that expense with ad sales ... which just so happens to be the shrinking part of the business.

The demise of print may not be the bad news in this story, it may very well be the good news.

Imagine a news operation where there are only journalists and advertising sales. As Ken put it "boots to the ground" people. A new business model that costs far less to produce, with the same number of journalists.

[Jason Franson]

This is where the problem lies.

 "You can think of it in terms of probably one-third original content, one-third blogger opinions and one-third community journalism [generated from] outside."

I think most bean counter attitudes are that it will take half a newsroom to get done what we need. We don't need much staff if we can get free hand in citizen journalism. I see it happening now at local dailies, terrible hand in photos of non news events getting play, while staffers get the axe.

[Louie Palu]

Think of what Facebook does. It is like the new wire service spreading stories through people and ads like it or not. There will be more innovations like this.

[Warren Toda]

Think of what Facebook does.

Facebook does about $3.8 billion. That's ad revenues for 2011 and it's going nowhere but way up.

Yahoo does about $5 billion to $6 billion in ad revenues per year.

Google does about $37.9 billion in annual ad revenue which is going nowhere but up.

Little ol' Twitter does about $150 million from annual ad sales but it's still a new company just getting started.

The mom-and-pop company called Craigslist does about $100 million per year. But most of its ads are given away free.


In 2011, the *entire* US newspaper industry pulled in $23.9 billion in ad revenues (that's print and online combined), and revenue is going nowhere but down.

[Moe Doiron]

The newspaper industry's failure to understand how to mobilize a new business model to tap into the online market still puzzles me greatly. Clearly denial played a huge role, lack of innovation would be next on the list then closely followed by arrogance.

[Moe Doiron]

Trends are one way to predict the future, clearly as it stands now things are not looking good. However, using that same 5 year window, looking backwards most of us had not heard of or used Facebook, Twitter or an iPad. So disruptive technology will also play a role, one that we can't predict and could either speed up the process of killing off newspapers or save them.

The tablet is one such device that many saw as the magic bullet for newspapers, but surprisingly (or perhaps not) after two years most newspaper apps offer a less than hopeful user experience. The model of simply replicating the newspaper on a screen needs to be abandoned but sadly that's all that most can come up with.

[Warren Toda]

The tablet is one such device that many saw as the magic bullet for newspapers, but surprisingly (or perhaps not) after two years most newspaper apps offer a less than hopeful user experience.

In 2011, Google made $2.5 billion from mobile ads alone and that number is expected to double in 2012. Newspapers made, uh, quite a bit less. Some newspapers have refused to do anything with tablets.


Today, the ninth annual report on American journalism was released. I suspect that what happens in the US is also happening, or will soon happen, here in Canada.

The 2012 State of the Media report has tons of information. If you enjoy downhill skiing, the study also has lots of graphs.

The problems of newspapers also became more acute in 2011. Even as online audiences grew, print circulation continued to decline. Even more critically, so did ad revenues. In 2011, losses in print advertising dollars outpaced gains in digital revenue by a factor of roughly 10 to 1, a ratio even worse than in 2010. When circulation and advertising revenue are combined, the newspaper industry has shrunk 43% since 2000.

Just as newspapers lost classified ads to Craigslist and similar sites, papers may soon lose online display ads:

Already in 2011, five technology companies accounted for 68% of all online ad revenue, and that list does not include Amazon and Apple, which get most of their dollars from transactions, downloads and devices.  By 2015, Facebook is expected to account for one out of every five digital display ads sold.

[Colin Corneau]

Re: tablet computers...

I remember reading Steve Jobs' biography, when his meeting with the NYT was mentioned. His take on newspapers was that they twiddled and wasted time for 20 years, so why should he take them seriously now.

A good question then, and sadly a good question still.

Many of the people involved in the inaction have no stake -- their bonuses/retirement packages are unaffected no matter how unprepared they leave their operations, and it's less work to do nothing and deny reality. I guess the thinking among that mindset is it's better to wring a few more dollars out for 5 years than it is to receive slightly less for those 5 years in order to keep the thing viable past that date.

But hey, I'm just a guy who thinks newspapers are important, can be interesting, and makes his living from one.

[Ken Gigliotti]

 
  I think smart people at the Globe have estimated the life span of “print on Paper” to 15 years . How they arrived at that number , who knows . I know their leadership got out ten years before anyone could see clearly the writing on the wall.
  This business will always be run by people in their  50's . All business has that in common . Our  goal  is to recognize just who is our customer and decide just what are we selling . That is the confusing and confounding detail that is derailing any true success .
   
  Newspapers are important , and most people  believe in newspapers  in theory . The problem  in reality is our business has given up the last twenty years to inaction and a faulty business model . The business was always built to be sold . The last time they were sold , they sold high and now we see  the valuations and debt and a credit crunch  throwing  things way off kilter .
  The newspaper business was in trouble long  before the internet. This has to be addressed with innovative content from inside and outside the fort.
   The current social network media  has evolved in reaction to mainstream media . TV , time well wasted , social  media is the opposite of that. People are choosing  to use their time differently .The medium is not the message , connecting is the message. They found the ideal way to connect from existing technology of e-mail taken forward many steps . Making that connection has  caught up with people's desire to not be isolated. TV and video games are isolating . Reading and writing and connecting instantly has been liberating .
   We know reading and writing .( I don't personally but...)
  The “print “ mentality believes that this is the perfect product. Maybe it is now , but it needed to perfect  twenty years ago. Design plus marriage between words and pictures needed to matter then , it is too late for that now. Small papers had to be better 20 years ago.
  Technology is moving so fast that our business is fallen behind exponentially and is free fall .
BUT , our values and core business , that being “news” are a valuable asset . If we focus on that ,there may be a chance.
  The good thing is that TODAY the product is the best it has  ever been since the Golden Age of Newspapers . Both big and small papers are serious about the  quality of journalism . The gun has been placed to the heads  of the guilty .
  We need the economy  get better , but our stated mission  only encourages more recessions .
  Barring  that , the only thing that can save a “good “product is marketing . The basic cable version of the online product  should be free , just the first few paragraphs , a webbie from each story . Then charge money for the full product. If the product can move away from just doing stories about people that advertize  and develop a vibrant lifestyle , “best life” product to capture people who don't go to pro sports and expensive concerts , we can find hundreds of thousands of new readers .
  There are certain aspects of living that don't change , relationships , we need to find our readers a date, help them build wealth , raise children from infancy to adulthood, we may have to teach English , and inform  news Canadians about 911 , or find value ,peace , prosperity , everyday . We can still bring the horror  and the  latest scores .
  The Daily can be  the harvest of  the best that all media have to offer , we can beat TV and radio , and scoop magazines ideas too. A website can steal existing advertising from each area. Movie theatres are stealing TV ads.
   Our media still commands “bigness” and that has to extend to the area between the ears.
  The writing style needs changing because there is no reason to read past the first three paragraphs of any news story .
 This is not a big overhaul , just divide  up the product and tweak this or that , finding the 2/3's of people who never buy newspapers because they just don't live  for news ( because they are just living) . The paper has to be relevant to people who are looking for that edge to get them out of  lower middle class . This is the class that is growing and this has always been our market.
 Newspaper reporters and photographers have value because  of their vision ,and dedication but the business model stifles  the  best efforts of a group that has always wanted to BE MORE .