The Audit Bureau of Circulation released the results of the latest audit and unless your USA Today or The Wall Street Journal, the picture isn't pretty (and one could argue the modest gains in those to newspapers isn't exactly stellar).
The Associated Press announced yesterday the results of the audit for the past six months, with USA Today and the Journal not even seeing 1% gains, while the New York Times fell nearly 4% and other papers like the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Trib, Washington Post and so on fell. Note Dallas Morning News: 10.6% drop in circ -- staggering.
Clearly the culprit is online readership. I guess the question is this: the print subscriptions is falling, but are readers still reading the New York Times (or has NYT even gained readers) online. And if they have, how effectively is NYT converting those eyeballs into revenue?
I had a conversation with some folks today and made the point that while of course we at Avanade want to continue to increase our media coverage in the short term, long term (I don't know if that's 6 months, 12 months or 2 years from now) I expect we'll begin to have less coverage, not more. This is due to the fact that the traditional media channels continue to shrink. Of course the online opportunities will increase, and I'm not discounting that, but I've made the argument that we're going to have to evaluate how we spend our limited resources, in what channels in reaching the right audience, and then measure our success accordingly. The reality is it might not include print media very much.
I could be wrong, but as I analyze when people read their newspapers, I tend to hear about sitting down on a Sunday with a cup of coffee relaxing -- like reading a novel. Entertainment sort of reading. And then catching breaking news online. What that means for newspapers and how do they make money with features, opinion, commentary, I don't know. Just an observation of consumer behavior -- specifically, mine.
1 comments:
Excellent post, online news readership is increasing rapidly from the past few years. There are new technology distributions channels came in and doing very well to the publishers. Some companies like http://www.pressmart.net helping the news publishers to distribute their print editions through these various technology mediums. I think this would be leads to generate more revenues and save the industry from shrinking.
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