06/02/17 - Would you believe it? Print remains a favourite with readers (44)

06/02/17 - Would you believe it? Print remains a favourite with readers (44)

Since Google turned up in the industry, contributing to the destruction of the business model of newspapers, the actual disruption to traditional media such as print has accelerated. Journalism's future is now in fact online, regardless of what the comments of the digital deniers are. At the same time though, later down the line what print could do is largely serve more of a niche market in a way akin to magazines as they'll always be a segment of society willing to pay to get that exact kind of access to information. Whether this could be adapted to a business model, supporting quality journalism on a scale that allows it to be a centre of daily national conversation though is particularly questionable. As well as this, there's the whole issue about the echo chambers social media creates with the increased use of it for access to news and if it could improve the dissemination of news. The attention that online editions of news receive from readers is also quite a questionable thing. While online editions have as much as tripled the number of readers national papers reach, research shows that the amount of time that readers spend on them is significantly less than they would with an actual paper.

• 89% of newspaper reading is still in newsprint, with just 7% via mobile devices and 4% on PCs
• While print newspapers are read for an average of 40 minutes per day, online visitors to the websites and apps of those same newspapers spend an average of just 30 seconds per day
• Split in newspapers' print/digital revenues (88% to 12%)
• UK national newspaper market is more concentrated than is commonly believed, with one title having close to a 30% market share

This article is quite interesting as it unveils/reveals some of the things we didn't actual know in relation to the 'newspaper vs print' debate. The huge difference between the time spent reading stories online and then reading the print variant shows that perhaps print still does have something to offer. In fact, there have even been calls from Ofcom themselves saying that market share should actually be calculated from time-spent reading. As well as this, it'll be quite noteworthy to see whether print does become this more niche thing in time as it is  something that's been suggested by other people in the past. At least in this instance, there'll still be some use of the platform.