Newspaper Industry

The end of an era? Newsrooms are going dark in more ways than one.

Phillip Nones Employment, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing , , , , , , ,

nrWhen people stop reporting statistics on an industry, it could be a sign of increasing irrelevance.

Unfortunately, that seems to be what’s happening in the newspaper and print magazine segment, slowly but surely.  Over the past few years, there’s been a steady decline in the number of benchmark reports being published about the industry.

In 2014, Publishers Information Bureau, the longstanding publisher of annual statistics on print advertising pages and ad revenues for magazine titles, ceased providing such data after migrating to a digital audience reporting format.

A year later, the Newspaper Association of America (aka the News Media Alliance) stopped reporting annual revenue figures for the newspaper industry.

Its counterpart in the radio media segment – the Radio Advertising Bureau – has done the same thing as well.

No longer reporting on advertising and revenues is one thing. But now the American Society of News Editors has stopped publishing annual estimates on the total number of journalists working in the newsrooms of America.

For years, those statistics have been a proxy for gauging the overall health of American journalism. And in recent years, what the stats were showing was something pretty ugly.

Between 2001 and 2015, ASNE’s statistics showed a decline in the number of journalists of more than 40%, with the total head count dropping from ~56,400 to ~32,900 over the period.

Perhaps it’s understandable that the news industry doesn’t want to chronicle the continuing decline of a once-vibrant and vaunted profession. But stopping the reporting of stats on it may be sending the wrong message – or adding to the implosion.

At a time of heightened incidences of “fake news” in the media, and when the business model for traditional journalism is increasingly precarious, to take the “real facts” of what’s happening and shove them under the carpet seems short-sighted at best.

By averting our eyes to what’s happening, it could well be exacerbating the trend lines. And then at some point, it won’t be that much of a stretch to think of journalism as a quaint, historical concept that is irrelevant in today’s world.

I hope we never get there. But at the rate we’re going, it’s looking more and more like the “great disappearing journalism.”

Newspaper Ad Revenues Plummet to a 60-year Inflation-adjusted Low

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

Newspaper advertising revenues decline to 1950 levels in inflation-adjusted dollars.Newspaper ad revenues have now collapsed to a level not seen since the 1950s in inflation-adjusted dollars. 

That’s the sobering conclusion from the Newspaper Association of America’s release of the most recent advertising revenue figures for the U.S. industry.

With these dismal statistics, the newspaper industry seems sure to contract even further, while getting precious little boost from their online advertising activities.

Clearly, when it comes to media, it’s “out with the old” and “in with the new” …

A Newspaper Startup in 2012 … Is this Madness?

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

European Daily, preview editionOver the past decade or more, seemingly all the business trends on the newspaper front have been negative. So to read that a new transnational newspaper is being planned for a Fall 2012 launch comes as a pretty big surprise.

Yes, you heard that right:  The European Daily plans to hit the streets in a few months’ time. In the meantime, the budding newspaper already has a website up and running.

The European Daily is the brainchild of three young entrepreneurs from Sweden and Germany. “We are a publication that partly targets a more senior audience who, to a great extent, still prefers print, as well as a traveling audience who wants to read their news on a flight or at their hotel,” says Johan Malmsten, one of the three founders.

Does this sort of thinking sound like a recipe for success in 2012?

At first blush, it seems like a pipe dream. Two huge roadblocks appear to be standing in the way of success. First, the market dynamics have been ugly for traditional newspapers … their traditional business model swept away by the Internet and changing ways that consumers access the news.

Add to this the mounting political and economic crisis in Europe, which could result in the European Union’s breakup, rather than any sort of renewed consolidation.  Is this the right time to be introducing a media property that’s “pan-European” in its character?

Mr. Malmsten discounts these threats. Instead he asserts, “Some people have praised us on our perfect timing, given the vivid current debate about Europe and the fact that a European news source and a common public sphere have never been as much in demand.”

“Europe is a daily reality for millions of Europeans, and that won’t change. We see giving these people a news source and a daily point of reference as our mission,” he adds.

Looking at the newspaper’s launch plans, it’s pretty clear the investors are fully committed to their mission. A staff of 30 is being constructed for the paper — about half of them focused on content.  The editorial team will be based in Amsterdam in Holland.

A “preview” edition of the European Daily was printed last year and ~40,000 copies were distributed in key urban centers like Paris, London, Berlin and Brussels. Reportedly, the reception was highly positive.

But I have doubts whether a completely new newspaper title can be launched successfully – especially one that’s based on a conventional print-centric product with a digital adjunct. It seems like we’ve seen this movie before:  This very formula has been tried and found wanting – even among established newspaper brands.

It will be interesting to look back in about two or three years and see if this endeavor adds up to much – or instead has gone by the wayside.

Anyone care to weigh in with odds on the front end?