Readership of newspapers has continued to decline in the United States as more readers turn to online sources for news, according to the NY Times.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations figures show that newspaper readership dropped 3% compared with the year before.
Some newspapers fared better than others, with the US Today recording a 1% increase in circulation, along with the LA Times 0.5% and the Philadelphia Enquirer at 2.5%.
We’ve written about the decline in print media many times before. Most recently I noted that 2008 may well be the year we see big shut downs in magazines, and rightfully so: tech magazines in particular compete with online publications that print news when it happens, as opposed to 6-8 weeks later. However newspapers aren’t quite as doomed as some may suggest, with the World Association of Newspapers reporting that to February 2007 global newspaper circulation was up 9.95 percent over five years and 2.36 percent over twelve months.
The decline of print media isn’t an international story, it’s one that’s very much focused on the United States, and to a lesser extent the English speaking world. The problem today with print media in the United States is that it has yet to have undergone a massive market restructuring that has occurred in other countries. In Australia in the 1980s, early 1990’s the number of daily newspapers shrunk massively in a major round of market restructuring lead by News Corp. My native New South Wales (pop 6.8m) went from four local daily newspapers to two, excluding the national papers but published in Sydney The Australian (think USA Today) and The Australian Financial Review (think WSJ). Four of the six states in Australia (Queensland (pop 4.3m), Tasmania (not a lot), Western Australia (pop 2.2m) and South Australia (1.5m)) were left with only one local daily newspaper. Compare this to some similar US states; Massachusetts (6.4m pop) has 31 daily newspapers according to Newspaperlinks.com. Nevada (2.4m), with a similar population to Western Australia has 6 daily newspapers. The problem with newspapers isn’t the web alone, its excessive choice in a declining market. Newsprint has a future, but not in a cut throat marketplace that provides more choice than the market can consume.
Good post. The issues facing the mainstream press aren’t limited to print. Every day, mainstream news organizations are suffering. Some of their woes can be attributed to:
1) Lack of relevancy of articles to the wants and needs of their readers
2) The increased media consolidation means less diversity of opinion
3) Media credibility and trust issues
4) Time to market is still slower as compared to online news sites and blogs.
The news space is one that has seen less innovation and disruption than a lot of other industries, yet the old guard has been painfully slow to respond. Unless they embrace the new world that they find themselves in, their days are limited. Of course, we are still dependent on these news organisations to provide us with (quality) content. I love reading the paper, but find myself underwhelmed with my options. Hopefully this will change…
Shafqat
http://www.newscred.com
Shafqat
agree, although on 2 I’d note that the problem with print is that there hasn’t been consolidation enough: print can survive in the US but it cant at its current numbers.
I follow the restructuring of pulp, paper and board manufacturing. The decline in print media started around 2000 but more paper machines were built. Today one Finnish business daily, Taloussanomat, announced that they will move from print to the web. Our biggest forestry companies, Stora Enso and United Paper Mills have been closing older paper mills. I guess this started in US ten years ago.
Duncan - fair point. I’ve been following the news space for a while because of the relevancy to my startup, but its the first time I’ve really seen the argument of ‘not enough consolidation’ put forth. Its interesting supply and demand economics, and you have numbers to back it up. But its a double edged sword - without consolidation, the print dailies in their current numbers won’t survive. But with massive consolidation, all our news is filtered through a few giant sources. Not necessarily bad if we still have access to credible news and diverse viewpoints - unfortunately, I dont see this happening.
The NYT is still one of the world’s very best papers, and what News Corp has done to the newspaper world (not to mention, by extension, politics) is a Very Bad Thing. In terms of magazines, the US has a very rich spectrum of available titles, from Time down to Bitch. Its print media is varied, high quality, and something to be protected, not a dinosaur overdue for extinction.
Take a look at the situation here in the UK: in an area the size of some US states, we have a huge number of daily papers, many of which continue to do very well. Local news is usually ridiculous, for sure, but they’re surviving, and nationally we’ve also got the Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph, Sun, Mirror, News of the World, Daily Mail, Independent … they all live together in a much smaller market. I’m not sure it’s so much a problem in terms of the number of papers, but actually a cultural issue in the United States to do with the number of people who actually read and pay attention to current affairs.
I suppose it’s natural for these titles to move to the web, but until the Internet is ubiquitous, I think this is actually dangerous. Information is desperately important for true democracy to work; it should therefore absolutely not be limited to the elites. As big as our industry is becoming, people with regular broadband access are still an elite, and will be for quite some time.
Interesting post. At the Web 2.0 conference similar things were said (refer to the O’Reilly coverage on this topic). What I was wondering was: does the decline in printed media also imply that printing is declining? Or do people, when they read online newspapers and magazines, still print the articles to read them (convenience printing)?
Friend,
Online media is more interesting,
with things like interactive polls, most latest news updated hrly,
News in hand can be a Billion dollar opportunity which can get lost in Print Delays.
Also videos can be seen only on web.
http://tekno-world.blogspot.com
….. and they put it in the newspaper. lol
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I read the post based on the headline expecting some direct linkage between the web and news print readership decline.
You don’t really do that.
Newspaper readership in the US started declining in the 1930s, and accelerated in the 1970s. You can’t blame that on the Web.
There are any number for reasons for circulation declines. I happen to believe, based on other evidence I’ve seen, and my own personal experience in the field, that the web is now contributing to declines, but it is far from the sole factor. Newspaper circ would be declining even without the web.
Except, there is hope. In some markets readership/circ is actually climbing. Why? Because those newspapers have changed how they run their operations. The writing is more lively and the coverage is more narrowly focused.
Also, US newspapers have gone through significant consolidation. In the 1970s, almost every city had at least two daily newspapers, now very few do. The afternoon daily is nearly dead in the US.
As for MA, a market I know a little about because of direct affiliation with many of the papers there — it’s a very competitive media market, but direct overlap of competition is a mixed bag. There is some of that, but outside of the Herald and the Globe (which do not compete throughout the state), most of the dailies (along with a huge number of weeklies) cover specific towns and cities and do not directly compete with each other. So I’m not sure you direct comparison is really accurate.
And as to the first comment, I’ve never gotten this “less diversity of opinion” meme. Newspapers, even in big corporations, tend to operate quite independently. The only place you supposedly find opinion is on the editorial page, which tend to be staffed by highly individualistic people who set their own agendas, with (in most cases), minimalistic publisher oversight, and certainly very little from corporate overlords, who have far bigger things to worry about than what opinion some editorialist might have on a given subject. As for what appears in the news columns, that’s a different issue, but more related to how “professionalism” has squeezed the life out of most news right, but that has happened completely independently of corporate consolidation.
Discloser: I work for a big corporate media company. (and disclaimer: my opinions are my own).
More people are using and are actively involved in media online, therefore print will fade out over time. There will of course be some survivors because people like carrying magazines on the go.
It is the Philadelphia Inquirer, not Enquirer.
“The problem today with print media in the United States is that it has yet to have undergone a massive market restructuring that has occurred in other countries. In Australia in the 1980s, early 1990’s the number of daily newspapers shrunk massively in a major round of market restructuring lead by News Corp.”
– Newspapers do, however, have editors.
Howard - when I mentioned diversty of opinion, what I really meant was diversity of coverage (news and opinion — which is not always separate!). Regardless of if it is due to corporate influence or not, the coverage amongst the major news organizations is not diverse enough for my tastes.
Your point that one can’t blame circulation decline solely on the web is spot on. There are innumerable reasons, but rather than dwell on the past, news organizations should look to the future and find new models for their growth. High quality, credible news content that is accessible to all is a foundation of democracy. I hope the major media companies can live up to this enormous responsibility.
Even still I always like to hold my newspaper, I read online as well. But sitting on the toliet with your laptop reading isn’t the same.
Americans are an instant gratification people, we want what we want now. That is why we have so much debt. Now that we have access to learn something right when it happens why would you wait until tomorrow. I cant remember the last time i read a newspaper. Newspapers and magazines wont disappear completely but consolidation and bankruptcy is definitely in the works, and soon.
Allan - But reading with your Wifi PDA…. now that is kinda nice.
U.S. newspapers have indeed been through massive upheaval. There used to be a lot more afternoon newspapers, and two-newspaper towns. So I’m not sure your analysis is correct on that score.
Duncan:
In your article you write:
—
“The problem today with print media in the United States is that it has yet to have undergone a massive market restructuring that has occurred in other countries.”
—
I can’t speak to magazine circulation but daily Newspapers have done nothing but close-up or consolidate since the late 1970’s.
That said another wave is undoubtedly in the works.
aren’t all newspapers online these days anyway?
Sorry to say this, but the only place people read newspaper is in the restroom. This going to stop soon when people get their internet using their cell phones
I have to wonder how newspapers are fairing in “micro markets.” A paper was launched recently in the little town I live in, for instance, and it seems to be doing quite well. It has good potential for local advertisers, who probably wouldn’t get the same level of visibility through the Web, even with very good local SEO, and I think it contributes more to community “identity”–an evolving niche craving, I think–than the Web typically does in small communities (not that the Web *can’t* contribute–we do also have a vibrant Web community here). We may be an anomaly. Would be interested to know if others are seeing anything similar.
Good one! but news comes faster to net than daily…
Regarding Jeff and “micro markets”. Local news is about to have a gigantic comeback. People left local because the national news guys were the first to figure out aggregation, ranking, comments systems, etc. not because they no longer care about their home towns.
Local aggregation, when done right, will swing things back IMO. I’m taking a crack at it with http://houndwire.com .
I think we’ll see cheap laser printers with internet connections on street corners in a few years printing out aggregated local + national content… which will address dude’s need to take it in the restroom.
HoundWire… nice site. I like the aspect of County news as well as National news. The site though is a little too busy for me (see discussion below)
However, call me old-fashion (41 years old) but I get tired of filtering through websites for relevant news and after sitting in front of monitors all day, why do I want to also read my news from them?
How I have been getting my news is from Yahoo’s headlines. Give me a brief one-line description, and if it looks interesting, then I can choose to read further.
Perhaps the problem with newspapers is they haven’t changed their format. The WSJ has their left-column newsclips. Sometimes that is all I need. USAToday became popular because it reinvented its format.
Who knows, if newspapers would just print the front page with one-line headlines only, perhaps more people would be enticed to read further.
Oddly enough Massachusetts actually has more than 33 newspapers, as that web site does not include the Daily Times Chronicle’s Burlington, Reading, Wakefield, and Winchester editions.
The newspaper is not going anywhere.
Nothing like reading the NYT in the weekend over your leisure time.
http://www.meetingflex.com
Social Networking + Video - Crap
Great article but one question: Do you think everything is slowly migrating towards the convenience factor? For example, people seem to be selling their own homes online and publshing their own works online to avoid costly commission fees. Is this an increasing trend?
The Economist has over a million subscribers…
Can anyone opine on what the impact on the environment would be if we stopped printing paper newspapers and magazines altogether in the next 10 years? Seems to me like this is a really good trend that we should encourage, and just in time, too?
Or would this just create more forest fires.
I think that a decade or two from now when the baby-boomers are gone, media will have shifted entirely to cater to “the internet generation”
http://www.wavecorp.com
@ #30: Agreed the shift will continue, but print will not go away entirely. It’s just so much nicer to grab a magazine, newspaper or book sometimes, especially on a trip or vacation or when someone else is paying for it. Also, if enough pubs go “digital only” it will reduce the noise on the newsstand, which all things being equal, will stimulate the market, which is likely to become one of those “barbell” markets, with huge national and international publications (New York Times) on one end and small niche publications (Milky Momma’s) on the other. Everything in between struggles and dies or consolidates. Cheers, chrisco
Nice article and insightful discussion.
One point about about WAN though is they tend to always go on about how newspaper circulations are growing globally. That’s true but only because they are growing so strongly in emerging economies like India. However they are declining across the US and Europe. Also, while newspaper circs have been in decline for decades, in the UK at least, the rate of decline has accelerated since 2000. Also note whether the WAN figures include free titles which have seen a huge growth in the UK and Europe over the past 10 years, largely at the expense of paid for titles.
Another thing to separate out is circulations from ad revenues. A lot of newspapers in the UK have achieved ad revenue increases over the past 5 years despite substantial circulation declines. However ad revenues (particularly classifieds) are now heavily in decline in the US much of which is driven by price competition from the internet.
On local, in the UK at least, small local weekly titles are doing better (for both circ and revenues) than city titles. Generally, over here if you can see sheep from your office things should be ticking along OK!
On current trends in 10 years time there will still be newspapers, just less well read and *a lot* less profitable.
The Australian is not like the USA Today. You can’t compare the ass-wiping goodness of USA Today with a decent, intellectual paper like the Australian. Shame on you, Duncan.
Good bye left wing dinosaurs! Don’t let the door hit your left leaning a$$. I haven’t read a paper in years. I quit watching TV years ago also, except when there is a war or the superbowl etc. The internet alows me to get news and info without an annoying leftist slant.
James Bentley wrote, “…if newspapers would just print the front page with one-line headlines only, perhaps more people would be enticed to read further.”
The Winnipeg Free Press in Canada has come close to what you are suggesting…
http://www.newseum.org/todaysf.....rthAmerica
As well just this past week according to Audit Bureau of Circulations the average weekday newspaper circulation for the six months ending Sept. 30, 2007 for the Wpg Free Press was up 1.28%.
“Paid circulation for most major Canadian daily newspapers was either down or relatively flat in the six months ending Sept. 30.”
http://www.winnipegfreepress.c.....3165c.html