Newspapers' Bleak Future
I work for a newspaper but sometimes wonder if it’s going the way of the telegram. This sense of impending doom was exacerbated today by Jeff Cole, who has been heading at team at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications, that has collected data about Internet usage for the past six years. Cole, who was speaking at a MSN/Sympatico digital advertising conference in Toronto today, said teenagers aren’t reading newspapers and likely never will. At the same time, newspaper publishers are still struggling with ways to generate revenue from offering content online because there are too many free ways to get the news. With fewer readers and less-than-encouraging online prospects, Cole believes many newspapers will disappear over the next 30 to 40 years (Yikes!). One of the only bright spots, he said, are Sunday newspapers such as the New York Times that could become more popular by morphing themselves into weekly magazines. It’s a provocative viewpoint because newspapers have been around for such a long time and are still an integral part of many peoples’ daily lives. But you can’t help but think that Cole is right and/or newspapers need to change their stripes to survive. If you look around newsrooms across North America, hundreds of reporters are being cut loose as publishers scramble for ways to deal with lower advertising (which is being taken away by online rivals such as Craigslist, eBay, Match.com, Yahoo, Google, etc.). As a journalist, I don’t think newspapers will disappear but I'm biased. That said, they will need to aggressively build out their online operations (blogs, podcasts, video blogs, Web sites, RSS, etc.) as extensions of their off-line businesses – even if the business models are far from clear yet. At the same time, they need to recognize their brands and content are valuable and can be leveraged with some creativity.
April 27th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
There is no question that media revenues are dropping and will continue to do so because of competitive channels for advertisers dollars. But technology has brought huge changes to the cost structures for the media as well.
As a relatively new blogger, it seems to me that the challenge for viewers of new media is in filtering through the vast amounts of material to find the voices that are authoritative and trustworthy.
The fact that everybody can publish their own site means that there are a lot of new voices that can be heard. Unfortunately, many of the loudest voices are ones that don't deserve a large audience.
The media, newspapers, magazines, radio and TV have historically provided the audition function for their viewers. Most portals today are still wide-open. Is there a role for papers in new media in providing quality assurance to information and commentary?
April 28th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Demographics are a real key to the Newspaper's demise. The industry will have no choice but to do a complete rethink on their business model and more importantly, the very definition of what a newspaper actually is. News on paper is dying. It must turn into something else, if it is going to survive the Echo generation. I wrote a post on my blog about how I think newspapers may need to evolve.
Mario Garcia and The Future of Newspaper Design
April 28th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Great post, Mark. Obviously, in my line of work, public relations, the topic is of great interest. Personally, I think that newspapers will exist, but the “paper” part will change significantly. Major dailies have huge brands and tremendous credibility supporting them. No matter what, credibility is key when it comes to forming opinion. Journalists professionally gather and sift information, and then present unbiased, objective and balanced stories to their readers. Whether they do that on paper or electronically to me does not matter. Although youth may not read print papers, they are as intelligent and savvy as any generation, and intelligence is attained by seeking out and detecting credible sources to help form opinions. Cheers.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
As you work for a newspaper, I can understand your bias around its changing role. However, this trend is pretty basic and has been going on for a bit. Having some so called expert declare this trend as something other than obvious diminishes his credibility. Jeff Cole should be providing insightful perspective on “what's next”? This does not appear to eminate from any of his speeches.
The interesting piece is how newspapers evolve. Their brand will not go away but delivered differently. How will this be done? What current tools are fads and what has long term staying power and why? Are the changing reading patterns of the population temporary or permanent or most likely, they will evolve. What will they be and why? There is a lot more here to discuss than building out online operations using the various tools available leveraging the brand. The hard and interesting part is providing a view on the future with a rationale. Jeff Cole sounds like a consultant to me. To quote an old joke, did he ask if he could borrow your watch?…
June 2nd, 2006 at 12:51 am
“…Cole believes many newspapers will disappear over the next 30 to 40 years (Yikes!). ..” Guess you will retire by then?
I agree with you, james, abert…I also believe that newspaper will stay. (If it is supported by authorative articles about the negative effects caused by spending long-hours in front of PC monitor and reading from small digital screens, probably that 30-40 years will be extended! 
)
But new business models, new format(s), and aggressively restructure and build their operations (both on and off-line) that will leverage and integrate well with new delivery methods are necessary. However, this 'how' will need some time and through testing and monitoring in order to become a valid and profitable formula that is also flexible to meet future challenges, as challenges also come at a speed like new technology!