The other month we posted a digest of ten reasons why print media is in serious trouble. emarketer now has a report out - 'newspapers in crisis: migrating online', that looks at the issue in some detail.
Though it costs $695, marketing charts has a summary.
eMarketer predicts that from 2005-2012 there will be seven straight years of ad revenue decline, totaling 42.5%. Though these are US stats, there's no reason to suppose things are any different in the UK or Australia as both countries have similarly seen large scale print media lay-offs.
Unfortunately for the newspaper industry, the recession means that online ad revenues are set to drop too, though not as steeply - a 4.7% drop is expected in 2009.
According to senior analyst Carol Krol, "The challenge is continuing to make money with the transition to online. Newspapers have the same transition problems that plague other traditional media such as TV, and so far they have not been able to crack the code."
eMarketer recommends that newspapers offer a wider and more interactive online offering including blogs, social communities and video content.
Regional papers in particular are having a problem showing relevance. We've previously talked about the fact that even the online offerings of the regionals are very low with on average no more than 200 people taking a UK regional via RSS, and very few Americans visiting their regional newspaper website.
There is however arguably a market for commuter freesheets that people read on the trains or tubes / subway - examples in London include Metro and the London Paper. As reported in the New York Times (whose excellent iPhone application btw is I think one way forward), a start up called The Printed Blog plans to distribute free newspapers with content taken from blogs.
According to founder Joshua Karp, "We are trying to be the first daily newspaper comprised entirely of blogs and other user-generated content. There were so many techniques that I've seen working online that maybe I could apply to the print industry."
Though The Printed Blog certainly saves on paying journalists (as most bloggers agree to donate their copy in return for exposure), there is the problem of print costs and also personalisation - something that the likes of Netvibes, Google Reader or Pageflakes can instantly offer the online (or increasingly, mobile phone based) reader.
Quoted in the article, Harrison Cochran, a former president of the Suburban Newspapers of America says that The Printed Blog's plans to publish loads of niche newspapers with content chosen by readers is a real challenge: "It just sounds daunting. To me, that's why the Internet was invented."
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