Back to the future: were newspaper publishers wrong to go digital? (13)

Back to the future: were newspaper publishers wrong to go digital? (13)

This article discusses whether the decision of newspaper publishers to go digital and remain providing print products was the right move or not. While it's said time and time again that the move to the digital platform has aided newspaper publications in maintaining their relevancy, this a completely different outlook on things. In fact, statistics from two Texas university academics show that with at least leading regional papers in the USA, over four years more than half of them lost readers. Not only this but it was discovered that 'newspaper readers did not drop print in favour of the same newspaper’s online edition,' which is what would often be thought to be the case. Jack Schafer, a media commentator in the US, speculates in the article that perhaps the reason why newspaper websites aren't holding the amount of interest they should be is due to online editions of papers being 'less-than-satisfactory' in comparison to 'paid-for-print version(s).' One of the more notable takeaways from the article is an analogy from one of the academics (Hsiang Iris Chyi):

'Newspaper had been running the equivalent of a very nice high-end steakhouse. Then McDonald’s moved to town and started selling untold numbers of cheap hamburgers.

Newspaper thought, “Let’s compete with that,” and dropped the steak for hamburger, even though it had no real expertise in producing hamburgers. What they should have done is improve the steak product.'

• More than half of them (51 leading US regional newspapers) had lost online readers in the course of the four years (from 2011 to 2015)
• US newspaper industry digital advertising revenue increased from $3bn to only $3.5bn from 2010 to 2014
• Print revenues plunged from $22.8bn to $16.4 bn over the same period - represented 82% of total newspaper revenue
• Days of 25-35% profit margins will never return and be happy with the 5% margins common in other companies

This article is of quite heavy importance, as it represents a different standpoint on the impact that new digital media has had on the newspaper industry. Rather than it being presented that print is simply a dying media, it's suggested here that the decision of publications to jump into digital offerings as oppose to improving print ones is the real reason we're seeing this 'terminal decline' in print. It'll be particularly interesting seeing whether or not this is the case with the UK and perhaps a study in the future will show whether it is or not.