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Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 50-Year Low in 2011

mjperry.blogspot.com

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Re: Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 50-Year Low in 2011

#41

Post by wglb »

tptacek wrote: post #30
ahi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did that in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The local paper is now annarbor.com. It's terrible. They don't really have any professionals left. Most of the articles are written by interns or kids right out of school with no sense of history or context, and amount to "Theirs[sic] a story here, but can't be bothered to make phone call." Ostensibly they cover my neighboring town as well, but they just run the police crime blot…

In fairness, was the local paper in Ann Arbor ever any good? (I lived there from '01-'05). Small communities have been poorly served by local papers long before the Internet ate them.

It was OK for a community of that size in 75-83.

Re: Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 50-Year Low in 2011

#42

Post by _wp3r »

benohear wrote: post #27

So if it's neither online nor print, where does the ad spend previously allocated to newspapers now go?

Cheaper non-media online advertising, also the first thing to go in a slow economy budget is advertising. Perfect storm as it were to kill the industry.

Re: Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 50-Year Low in 2011

#43

Post by _wp3r »

cchooper wrote: post #23
EnderMB wrote: post #21

This often makes me wonder if there is a place in a dying market for a small newspaper that prides itself on world-class journalism and thought-provoking articles. I know it's not exactly comparing apples to apples, but Private Eye in the UK still sells pretty well. I'm sure that if a newspaper marketed itself as high-brow, intellectual and most of all critical of itself and its own standards a lot of people would fl…

The Economist and Financial Times are both modern success stories for selling on-line subscriptions, so your theory holds out in practice.

Can anyone provide some insight about how successful The Economist has been online?

Re: Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 50-Year Low in 2011

#44

Post by chc »

euroclydon wrote: post #26
chc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody actually in the newspaper industry, I've been telling everyone who will listen for years now that the future of news does not look like newspapers, not even online ones. The idea of an "online newspaper" is like a horse-drawn carriage with mechanical horses are powered by gasoline — it obviously should be a car, but that's what you'd end up with if you were too tied to the idea of horses to let it go. The…

Who pays for investigative journalism in that paradigm? It sounds like the whole concept of a journalist is going out the window. It will be up to the soldier to write his own account of a battle, rather than an embedded journalist, etc, etc.

You seem to be using an extremely narrow definition of "investigative journalism." Most investigative journalism will go on about as much as it always has. Some member of the team will investigate a topic and write about it. That's what investigative journalism is.

If you specifically mean war reporting, I don't know. I suspect some kind of nonprofit will spring up to fund reports on wars, but that's contingent on it actually being something any appreciable number of people value as much as it costs.

Re: Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 50-Year Low in 2011

#45

Post by yirt »

patio11 wrote: post #4
Cushman wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it easy to imagine printed news coming back before seeing the graph? (Snark aside, it's a good point-- there must be similar graphs for the ice or telegram industries, to name two. Could make a pretty cool art installation or something.)

The really "Holy cow" bit for me is that even if you add the online revenue back in, the graph is virtually identical. If you had asked me this morning about the future of print newspapers, I would have said "Totally toast, of course, but savvy ones will move online." If you ask me now, I'd say "Totally toast. Your children may recognize the names of a couple of them, if they happen to regularly visit one of a handfu…

I know a few companies with rather successfully sell "Made in USA, from USA-sourced fibers" blankets in the $200 to $2000 range. The outlook is considerably more favorable if you go after the market segment with usefully high margins vs. raw market share (see also: Apple).

Re: Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 50-Year Low in 2011

#46

Post by benohear »

_wp3r wrote: post #42
benohear wrote: post #27

So if it's neither online nor print, where does the ad spend previously allocated to newspapers now go?

Cheaper non-media online advertising, also the first thing to go in a slow economy budget is advertising. Perfect storm as it were to kill the industry.

Dunno. The idea of have of newspaper advertisers are big ticket companies like BMW. I'm struggling a bit to imagine that they've shifted their newspaper budget to Google ads, or that their overall spending has diminuished _that_ much, but I could be wrong on all of these points.
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