The future of newspapers?
June 6th, 2007 · 3 Comments
The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) recently released an interesting report about the state of the newspaper industry worldwide – and according to this report, things are going pretty well: globally, newspaper circulation is up 2.3 percent and global advertising revenue is up 3.77 percent from last year. Chief Executive Officer of WAN, Timothy Balding, says the newspaper industry is “far from being an industry in decline.”
There are, however, some other news in the report that suggest that the picture may not be so rosy after all. To beging with, circulation increase is not a very reliable measure of newspaper financial success – the UK Daily Herald had by far the largest circulation of all daily newspapers when it was forced to close in 1964 (Read Adrian Smith’s interesting chapter in this book). What really matters for newspaper finances is advertising. And while the report states that total advertising revenue is up, it is worth noting that advertising share (i.e. the newspaper industry’s share of the advertising market) has not increased (in fact, it shows a marginal decrease, from 28.9 percent in 2005 to 28.6 percent in 2006). Ad expenditures are also decreasing in the US and Japan, two of the biggest newspaper markets in the world.
And while the report states that the number of published newspapers have increased slightly worldwide between 2005 and 2006, the pattern over the last 20 years have been that there are fewer and fewer newspaper sharing the increased circulation – i.e. a “rich get richer” scenario. The market is getting more and more competitive.
Also, the fact that some figures are on the increase compared to 2005 might not matter all that much, since 2005 was a particularly dismal year for newspapers (check out this article from The Economist, for example).
A final observation: the figures were released by WAN in conjunction with their annual conference. At this conference, WAN also released five new strategic reports on “Shaping the Future of the Newspaper” of which only one directly relates to journalism - a report on the increased importance of local content. The other reports are on a) advertising, b) benchmarking of digital revenue sources, c) company reorganisation and d) innovative management systems. What place does journalism have in the future of newspapers – if any?
Tags: Newspapers · dailies · tabloids · New media · International journalism
3 responses so far ↓
George Brock // Jun 26, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Simply to answer the point in your last paragraph….
The World Association of Newspapers has a section for editors called the World Editors Forum (www.editorsforum.org) and it is there, in our parallel forum (same time, same building) that we discuss journalism. Among other subjects this year, we had sessions this year on reporting Africa (we were in Cape Town), ethics, integrating print and digital newsrooms and quality journalism in free papers. I declare an interest here: I’m WEF’s current president (and Saturday Editor of The Times of London).
Most of this year’s sessions - and a great deal else - is summarised on www.editorsweblog.org
Our next Forum is in Gothenburg in summer 2008….
Henrik // Jun 26, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Thank you for your comment! As president of WEF, what is your sense of the amount of “crossover” going on between the people on the “business end” and people on the “journalism end” of things in your organization/at your conferences? I am sure there is much overlap in practice, but in my experience many journalists (including journalists who have moved away from direct reporting to editorial duties) can be a bit disinterested in (sometimes downright disdainful of) the business aspects of running a newspaper. It would be very interesting to hear your views on this!
Hope you have a productive Forum in Gothenburg, it is a lovely city (I lived there for eight years…)
George Brock // Jun 27, 2007 at 3:11 pm
The World Editors Forum came into existence about 15 years ago because editors who attended what was principally a conference for publishers wanted a platform for debate about newsroom issues.
But in practice the discussions in the World Association of Newspapers congress and WEF frequently overlap. Most editors-in-chief (and WEF is for senior editors) know that, in the words of Jim Carroll, ex-editor of the Los Angeles Times, an editor’s single most important relationship is with the publisher. As an example, one of our liveliest discussions in Cape Town was on quality journalism in free papers. The ground covered was mostly journalism, but it is impossible to discuss this issue without taking into account market conditions, reader preferences and circulations. And the editors on the panel debated them all.
Working out the right balance and relationship in the newsroom between print and digital also makes editors very conscious of the commercial context. Since - with very very few exceptions - most newspaper websites are subsidised by the newspaper’s print operation.
You can take the view of course that journalism is better conducted in an environment insulated from the pressures of the market (see John Lloyd’s mention of a recent article urging this by Jurgan Habermas). But I don’t.
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