{"id":173,"date":"2007-06-05T12:06:41","date_gmt":"2007-06-05T10:06:41","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-11-14T18:21:05","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T16:21:05","slug":"print-confounds-the-digital-doomsayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/173-print-confounds-the-digital-doomsayers.html","title":{"rendered":"Print confounds the digital doomsayers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">That\u2019s just one of the messages to be heard in Cape Town this week at the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) congress and World Editors Forum, attended by about 1600 delegates from 105 countries. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Timothy Balding, the chief executive of the WAN, spoke to Business Times about industry trends. Some of the biggest issues facing newspapers are:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">To remain confident about the future of print. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Verdana;\">\u201cNewspapers have gone through a deep period of doubt. Lots of doomsayers and pessimists say the web will substitute anything on paper. But the figures prove that is nonsense\u201d;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">To exploit merging opportunities to distribute information to a wider audience through a digital platform; and<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">To remain innovative and creative.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Verdana;\">\u201cThere have been more print products launched in the past three years than in the past 30, with cheaper prices, more colour, and different approaches to news and information.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Newspapers are becoming more sensitive to the needs of their audience, and a generation which has multiple choices.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Although newspapers\u2019 print products are proving incredibly resilient, in even mature markets, in their print products. \u201cBut at the same time, \u201cthey are neglecting no opportunity to take readers on-line\u201d. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">But the vast majority of countries in the world where newspapers are published don\u2019t face this dilemma, Balding said.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u201cIt will be decades before the masses have Internet access.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">It is only in the US that sales of newspapers are declining; in Europe, they are rising. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Balding said newspapers have been building their sales in the face of growing competition from digital distribution. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">He points out that in Scandinavia, which has high broadband penetration, newspaper sales are \u201cextraordinarily high\u201d. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Newspapers have also embraced digital channels, and claim higher audiences because of it. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The challenge is to make online news distribution profitable. \u201cIt is very difficult to find a successful business model,\u201d Balding said. For most media groups, 95% of turnover still comes from print editions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In Europe, and subsequently in the US, there has been a proliferation of free newspapers. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u201cThe jury is still out on whether it\u2019s good for the newspaper business,\u201d Balding said. \u201cAfter a lot of antagonism from big media groups, they\u2019ve embraced them and publish them.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Today, about 9% of the world\u2019s newspapers are distributed without cost. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">But a number of these free newspapers are coming under pressure, Balding said, and in the past few months, several have closed down in Britain and Poland. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Gavin O\u2019 Reilly, the president of WAN and chief operating officer of Independent News &amp; Media, said: \u201cThe prognosis for newspapers is actually quite different to conventional wisdom.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Provisional data released at the beginning of the month by WAN, collected from more than 200 countries and territories, show that global newspaper circulation rose nearly 2% last year, and the number of newspaper titles increased significantly. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Paid-for newspaper circulation went up 1.9% year-on-year last year, to more than 510 million paid-for copies . The number of new paid-for titles grew to more than 11000 for the first time in history.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Free daily paper circulation more than doubled over five years, to 40.8 million copies a day;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">More than 1.4 billion people now read a newspaper a day;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Print is the biggest advertising medium in the world, with a 42% share. Newspapers alone have 29.4% of global advertising spend<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Verdana;\">\u201cHidden in those figures is the fact that newspapers actually represent more than the combined advertising value of radio, cinema, magazines and the Internet,\u201d O\u2019 Reilly said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Advertising revenue rose 4% in the past 12 months and 15.6% over the past five years; and,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">More than 6-billion has been invested in newspaper printing and production equipment in the past 18 months.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Verdana;\">Paris-based WAN is a global organisation and represents 18000 newspapers worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The conference runs until Wednesday.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php?t=77213\">Comments<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Newspapers may feel they are under threat, but the media industry has successfully \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and profitably \u00e2\u20ac\u201d blended print and digital channels to keep readers and advertisers happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}