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.