Many businesses are taking a pounding in these harsh times but one area that seems to be ready to collapse is the media with the print media especially looking precarious.
Rumours are abound that at least two well known British national newspapers are fighting to stave off collapse and sweating hard over the circulation figures which makes grim reading for all of the dailies.
The weakest looking newspapers are the loss making Independent, Independent on Sunday, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday who have all shed readers to a critically low level.
These two outfits are desperately trying to cling on using two very different methods, the Independent raising its cover price to compensate for falling sales and the Star going the opposite way and slashing its price in an attempt to prise away readers from other tabloids.
Although the Star & Independent are most at imminent risk, all the national newspapers are suffering, circulation dropping by over an average 6% in the past year and dwindling advertising revenues further compounding the misery. With this present trend, and if the whispers prove correct, 2009 could well see one or more well known titles go to the wall.
The finger of blame is being pointed at the Web, with all the major Newspapers having an online presence which is the cause of the problem according to the boss of local newspaper publisher Johnston Press who have just negotiated a £200m rescue package.
"The internet alternative is cheaper and people are using it in more recessive times. Online is increasing its share and will not necessarily give it up when things improve."
Things are not looking good for the print media and these could be interesting times for the future of newspapers.
2 comments:
Lot's of the papers around here have been overhauled in the past 5 years resulting in the addition of tons of white space, tons of ads, tons of enormous pictures, and the subtraction of all the interesting articles.
It's too bad, I always enjoy a good paper - much more so than watching a bunch of entertainers with frighteningly perfect hair read teleprompters on TV.
A problem with all of this just occurred to me. In the past everyone got their news from the local paper, or the Times if it was shipped so far. Political opinions and news spin had a local cast, and each instance provided employment to a thinking writing person. Now, with the web, articles and columns are broadcast far and wide, and all over the world we get the same opinions written by the same widely syndicated people. I fear an ironic result of the internet will be a loss of information diversity. This can only polarize and dumb down society. Democracy will be reduced to the level of a football betting pool.
Shaddap, it is not.
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