As someone who is passionate about media and someone who enjoys newspapers, it is never nice to read about the continued downward trend in newspaper circulation. I grew up in a house where the daily broadsheet was a staple and the evening paper eagerly awaited. Sundays saw the house full of papers and a battle for various sections. That was then.
Data published last week by the UK-based Audit Bureau of Circulations, commissioned by the Irish titles, shows national newspapers have dropped between 0.9% and 11.9% in circulation in the past year.
Daily newspapers have fallen by an average of 7% while Sunday papers have fallen by an average of 6%.
There is no doubt that newspaper sales are dropping, and not one newspaper bucked the trend.
However, do newspapers have a future? What might this look like?
The reasons for the continued downward spiral in circulation are manifold.
Less disposable income during the recession hit sales, especially tabloid sales, as those who may have purchased two daily papers either stopped buying them altogether or decided to drop their “second paper”. The same applied to Sundays.
The way we consume media has changed radically, and the availability of up to the minute news and comment online for free, has meant there is a whole generation of 16-25 year olds who think that paying for content is folly when it is freely available. And they have a point. Personally, I will have read four or five articles before I even get out of bed, and often this content is replicated in print versions.
The stripping of newspapers and cut backs has only exacerbated the issue as journalists and editors scramble daily to get a paper out with limited resources. This impacts quality, which in turn impacts the attractiveness of the product. Certain media owners see journalists as a cost, rather than a prime asset, and this has impacted morale. It isn’t nice to see smart people under such pressure.
However, the newspaper does have a future. A medium term one anyhow.
Newspapers have great brands, take for example the Irish Times (or indeed Indo or Examiner or Mail…etc). They stand for something. They can be trusted.
The move into diversifying the offering has meant media owners now see the newspaper, rightly, as a media house, offering digital, audio and the traditional newspaper and sometimes education and training. The Mail has done a great job with its online offering for example. This has to help, especially as newspapers now realise they can’t just plonk the print version online and call it a digital edition. Videos, imagery and snappier content created especially for mobile is becoming the norm now.
Media owners realise now that the internet isn’t a fad. It must be embraced and those young demographics will not necessarily graduate to newspaper from apps, like say a young person graduates form house parties to pubs.
Newspaper must be lean but they must produce a quality product and too much stripping will impact the product. This balance is delicate. The better the economy gets, it will be interesting to see does the drop in sales bottom out.
In many ways, the perfect storm has arrived for newspapers.
Looking at the wider picture and the business model, it does look a little outdated. As one former commercial director of a national newspaper told me…”If you were to walk into dragons den, ask for a loan to set up a business that involved cutting down trees, setting up a printing press, hiring loads of journalists and editors and sales people and then having to put newspapers into vans and drive them all over the country to sell in shops, then they would say you were mad.”
He has a point. But it doesn’t mean the industry is dead and cannot adapt.
If newspapers adapt, maintain standards and become multi-media platforms, they have every chance. Perhaps we will see one or two disappear in the coming years, which is always sad but perhaps it is evolution.
People will trust brands though.
People will pay for quality.
Newspapers will crack the online pay wall conundrum and will diversify and they will survive.
I firmly believe we will have newspapers here in three years time and again in five years time.
Daily newspapers:
- Irish Independent : 112,383 (-7.2%)
- Irish Times: 80,332 (-4.6%)
- Irish Daily Star: 61,557 (-8.6%)
- Irish Sun: 60,711 (-7.0%)
- The Herald: 51,600 (-11.9%)
- Daily Mail: 50,032 (-2.3%)
- Irish Examiner: 35,026 (-7.6%)
Sunday newspapers (including the Irish Farmers Journal which is weekly)
- Sunday Independent: 220,565 (-5.1%)
- Sunday World : 198,260 (-6.1%)
- Mail on Sunday: 100,151 (-5.5%)
- Irish Farmers Journal: 70,235 (-0.9%)
- Sunday Times: 91,841 (-6.6%)
- Irish Sun on Sunday: 55,417 (-3.82%)
- Irish Sunday Mirror: 35,467 (-9.5%)
- Sunday Business Post: 34,012 (-11.2%)
By Mick O’ Keeffe, CEO, PSG Communications
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