History of the British press: new view of an old topic

I recently started reading about the history of the British press, and as I was   going through the Curran and Seaton’s book Power Without Responsibility, I   thought about a rather radical idea.

The declining circulations of the newspapers indicate very gloomy future for the newspaper business. It is hard not to think like that: the jobs are cut down and the profitability is rapidly declining. But, what if these happenings are more than survival tactics? What if this is a necessary happening that will put the imbalanced system back into a homeostatic state? In that way, the declines in the newspaper circulations should be seen as a positive event.

This thought crossed my mind as I learned more about the development of the British newspapers.

Traditionally, the daily newspapers in Britain can be divided into popular (Sun, Daily Mirror) and quality (Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Times) newspapers.  According to the authors the first ones originally relied on big readership as the main source of revenue. These publications adjusted the content to appeal to mass audience. However, their focus on high circulation backfired. Higher circulation meant bigger expenses. Eventually, some of the publications could not support themselves: in 1933 the Daily Herald had the largest circulation among other western newspapers, but it was still operating with a loss. In 1964, the Daily Herald had more than 5 times bigger circulation than the Times and it still closed down.

In contrast, the quality newspapers relied on a specific audience and advertisers for the revenue. Advertisers liked that they knew more precisely who they could reach. From 1966 to 1969, the Times increased its circulation and switched its orientation toward more general public. This move, however resulted in loses because the advertisers did not want to pay high rates and go beyond their targeted audience.  

Maybe the concepts of mass audience and mass media need a second thought. 

Circulation is certainly not the only factor that determines all the costs and is solely accountable for the current crisis in the newspaper business. The above mentioned idea, however, makes sense to me. It seems that newspapers overproduced themselves and now they reached the wall. Just in the United States, readers can get close to 1,500 different titles. Is that really necessary?      

Newspapers’ best assets (part II): Online = Interactivity

I know this has happened a month ago, but just think of the day when Congress did not pass the bailout plan for the Wall Street. I would guess that some of your first thoughts are jumble-mumble and confusion. When the plan did not pass the first time, my boyfriend and I, like most of you, were wondering what is actually happening. However, it was pass 10 p.m. We did not want to go to the store to get newspapers (after all, they wouldn’t have anything about the event). The TV news did not have all the information we were looking for. 

So, what did we do? No surprise – we surfed the Internet!!!!

We checked out CNN, Wall Street Journal and some other websites. They all had special packages focused on this issue, with many examples, analysis, charts, interviews, videos, links, etc.

Besides telling you how two of us did exactly what you probably did too, this little excerpt from my life actually has a far-reaching point. Interactivity, which includes numerous forms of two-way communication, hypertext, personalization, and active engagement of the users, is one of the main features that make online products different and appealing.

 

USA Today online uses many interactive tools. The layout is updated, improved and changed after certain periods. This one is from 2006.

Interestingly, the online newspapers don’t really capitalize on this. Just check out Wichita Eagle online! Besides commenting on the stories, readers don’t get much more.  
Sometimes, though, the main news on the home pages become stand alone packages offering forums, photos, links to other sources, etc. However, it is evident that this strategy is not consistently applied in publications nationwide or even a single online newspaper. 

It is clear that utilizing interactivity needs dollars…. a lot of dollars, and that nowadays this extra expenditure is probably not an option for majority of newspapers. Therefore, I want to make it clear that this is not criticism, but a short analysis, suggestion: Online and print newspapers need to be two different products (as I mentioned in one of the previous posts) and interactivity should be one of the features that will separate them.  

Newspaper circulations are not in decline … world-wide

Many times we have read that newspapers circulations are going down every year and that revenue from the advertisers is shrinking. How much of that is actually true?  

Here are some of the main points from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and their 2008 survey of World Press Trends:  

• Newspaper circulations world-wide rose 2.57 percent in 2007 
• Global newspaper sales were up +9.39 percent world-wide over the past five years.
• Advertising revenues in paid dailies were up +0.86 percent last year from a year earlier, and up +12.84 percent over five years. Print remains the world’s largest advertising medium, with a 40 percent share. 

Surprised? I was. I heard many claiming that newspaper business is in crisis and some more gloomy predictions state the newspapers will disappear or at least lost all of their profitability. Is this a light at the end of the tunnel? Not necessarily as the rest of the report continues:

(this part of the report is not any more publicly available and the access to it is limited only to the WAN members)

• 74 of the world’s 100 best selling dailies are published in Asia. China, Japan and India account for 62 of them.
• Circulation sales were up in South America and Asia, and in decline on the rest of the continents.
• In Europe the circulation declined in: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland,  Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and UK.
  It increased in: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Spain.

These details reveal that some of the newspapers big players (France, UK, USA) are on a downward spiral. Others, who in many cases are countries where democracy and capitalism are not dominant or are still developing show different trends. One example is China with an increase of +3.84% in one year and +20.6% over a 5-year period. Increases in India are even higher. 

 

The report confirms that newspapers’ usage and function can vary greatly from culture to culture and points out that technology is far from being the only indicator of the newspapers’ future.

Newspapers’ best assets (Part I): What is happening in my neighborhood

I am suggesting this for a long time:
Newspapers have to figure out what makes them different than the other competitors.

Wichita, Kansas

Q: What are print newspapers doing the best?

A: They (at least those good ones) tell me what is exactly going on in my own backyard?

Yes, we are amazed how easy now is to know what is happening in China or Russia, but what we always want to know more are the issues that can affect us immediately and those that will most likely have impact on our everyday life.

Kevin Alfaro couldn’t be more to the point:

As Thomas Friedman has said, the world is flat. At the same time as this happens, the newspapers have something that the internet would be hard press to provide. It is the local effect.

Online Journalism Blog quoted Philip Meyer

What service supplied by newspapers is the least vulnerable?

I still believe that a newspaper’s most important product, the product least vulnerable to substitution, is community influence. It gains this influence by being the trusted source for locally produced news, analysis and investigative reporting about public affairs. This influence makes it more attractive to advertisers.

Instead of trying to be global, reach everybody  and satisfy all the tastes, print newspapers should stick to what they do the best.

A whole new species

We have just finished our fourth Communication Week at the Wichita State University. Among many good points, one fact stayed with me today.

Bryan Monroe, vice president and creative director of EBONY and JET magazines, said that their online platform ebonyjet.com publishes 90% of original content. As he said, all three platforms are successful. Numbers are speaking the same:

• EBONY: average circulation 1.4 million
• JET: average circulation 978,000
• ebonyjet.com: average eyeballs 1.6 million

No cannibalization and no showelware.

Looking at this I am even more convinced that this might be the solution for the future of the print and online newspapers. They need to become two different products that are not necessarily competing but cooperating. This is not an original idea. Many have proposed the similar solutions.

Edward Rousel, Telegraph‘s digital editor, predicted;

In two to three years everything will be published to the Web and the best of it will be in the newspapers.

From the Associated Press study

The reality is, however, that the majority of newspapers still zealously protect their print versions (exceptions of course always exist such as the USA Today). Most of the content is replicated between two platforms. This becomes interesting for two reasons:

1. Researches has found an overlap between online and print readerships (some of us read both versions).
2. Newer generations less and less read print newspapers. If they choose online edition of the newspapers there are currently no incentives in checking out the print version. You get the same articles minus all the interactive features.

As of now, this is probably not an issue. Some of the biggest players, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor, reported in 2000 (this might have changed by now) that their print subscription increased because of the online editions. Only 7% of the MediaNews (owns 57 newspapers) sales come from online ads.

But what happens if you send a small rescue boat too pull out sinking Titanic? They both go down.