Death of the newspapers?

Many of us have been talking about the death of the print media for years because of the rise of the internet. Personally, the topic came up fifteen years ago when I studied in the UK. However, every time I go back to the UK, none of the major newspapers has disappeared except News of the World, and its disappearance had nothing to do with the internet at all.

 

The circulation of Los Angeles Times had decreased by half by 2009. Newsweek has stopped its print publication after 80 years. The Wall Street Journal started counting its online subscribers as part of its circulation back in 2003. These figures are daunting; however, the scenarios seem to be different at the other end of the world. Straits Times, a leading newspaper in Singapore, had a small increase in circulation in 2012 comparing to the year before. India has seen an increase on newspaper circulation in general in 2011; moreover, a similar trend has been reported in China, though the increase is only a modest 3.4 per cent.

 

Instead of sitting on the situation, many print media outlets have tried adopting various methods in order to stay afloat. For example, the Times in the UK was probably the first newspaper in the country to charge for online access. Straits Times charges less for its print edition than its online edition. In Hong Kong, the market share of the three most popular paid newspapers dropped from 73 per cent in 2002, to less than 60 per cent in 2009. The drop mainly came from free newspapers such as Metro and AM730. To combat the situation, the owners of these newspapers started publishing free newspapers themselves (such as Sharp Daily published by the Next Media Group), hoping that they would be able to secure some of the lost advertising revenue.

 

One of the few exceptions is the Financial Times. When all newspapers were suffering in the UK in 2010, the Financial Times made a profit. To me, the success of the Financial Times is not just that they have original content – the quality of their content is really what sets them apart. They have global offices and bureaus around the world, and they print their papers in all major markets such as New York, Hong Kong, South Africa. When SARS killed hundreds of people in Asia, the Financial Times launched its Asian edition. Now when you go to the Financial Times website, you can have access to three articles without paying anything. You will need to subscribe if you read more than three articles each month. In addition to the above moves, the Financial Times is one of the few publishers that do not work with Apple – as they consider working with Apple would affect their direct relationship with their readers, as well as their ability to make high yields. I think this strategic move was really bold. As everyone was trying to get onto the bandwagon with the apps store of Apple, the Financial Times moved away from the model. The Financial Times now has more than 600,000 of paid print and digital circulation each day, and this number has been growing.

 

In contrast to popular perception, the most active group of online news readers are in fact people aged between 25 and 34. Given the growing popularity of consuming news (and everything else) online among the younger population, the trend seems to be irreversible. For owners of paid newspapers, they must strengthen their content if they want to continue charging for their content. Otherwise they may have to consider changing its business models –from paid to free, from print to online or even from daily to weekly.

 

At the end of the day, I think everyone in the newspaper industry should think about this question: if you had to pay full price for the newspaper that you are producing, would you pay for it? If you do not think you are going to, then perhaps it is hard to expect other people willing to pay for your work.