Why the newspaper is headed for extinction: study
Communications consultant Ken Goldstein is not just another all-purpose analyst urging the world to jump on the new media bandwagon. His most recent paper does, however, conclude the printed newspaper is headed for extinction.
The printed newspaper is headed for extinction, according to one communications consultant.
Ken Goldstein is not just another all-purpose analyst urging the world to jump on the new media bandwagon. The founder of Winnipeg’s Communications Management Inc. has a graduate degree in journalism and decades of experience as a senior civil servant and private consultant in the area of communications policy. As a consultant, his advice is sought by media companies around the world.
His new discussion paper examines circulation trends in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The conclusion is not new, but it is backed up with impressive research that puts the Canadian experience in context.
Sixty years ago, more newspapers were sold every day in Canada than there were households in the country. Today, paid circulation is equal to about 30 percent of Canadian households — a lower household penetration than is found in either the United States or the UK.
Goldstein’s paper excludes free newspapers and measures only circulation — not readership. Distinguishing readership in print and online is very difficult, and this discussion paper is about the survival of ink on paper.
Goldstein points out that journalists are no longer the primary mediators between consumers and advertisers, or consumers and those who want to get their message to the public. And there is no longer an economic reason to bundle disparate products — sports, business, crosswords, classifieds — into one package.
He also reminds us of this quote from Marshall McLuhan:
“The classified ads (and stock-market quotations) are the bedrock of the press. Should an alternative source of easy access to such diverse daily information be found, the press will fold.”
The quote comes from Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. It was published in 1964.
Goldstein’s paper, Sixty Years of Daily Newspaper Circulation Trends, concludes:
“Ultimately, someday, the print product will be gone. And its replacement will not necessarily be the same number of local newspapers simply re-purposed into electronic formats. Because of the unbundling effect, it is at least possible that only a few major national or international newspaper ‘brands’ will survive in electronic form, and that local news will come to be delivered by, and attached to, a variety of other online services.”
To read the full discussion paper, click here.
[node:ad]
Kelly Toughill is an associate professor of journalism at the University of King's College and founder of Polestar Immigration Research Inc.
May 24, 2011
Once again, a study focuses
Once again, a study focuses on paid-subscription papers which are seeing their numbers drop. However, readership and engagement of free-distribution papers is strong in many parts of Canada. Companies that stick with an old business model are paying for their refusal to evolve. People want their news for free!
May 25, 2011
Paper newspapers are
Paper newspapers are inevitably destined for extinction. First, the use of resources to get expensive news print, maintain physical spaces for presses etc has centralized the newspapers into chains and jobbed out printing over the last 20 years already. It’s a matter of cost benefit to each newspaper chain.
This economic reality has forced the national/international editorial into a centralized factory that generates the same content (usually bland and without criticism) into a kind of news service used by all the local outlets of the the newspaper chain. Most advertising is also from a central source. Marshall McLuhan’s quote in this story is very apt.
The local skeleton reporting staff are few and far between and they generate feel good stories to ensure local advertising content is maintained. The hand writing is on the wall for the end of paid subscription printed paper newspapers. It is simply more cost effective to move to the internet or create free printed weeklies that are really vehicles for grocery flyers and big block store sales catalogues.
The real question is how can a move to the internet devise business models that enable good quality editorial to blossom? The groups that control the waning print world I fear will transport their current print newspaper advertising and editorial business models to the internet resulting in an uncritical blandness that we now see in their editorial factory produced pages.
Tom Thorne
May 25, 2011
When I interviewed Marshall
When I interviewed Marshall McLuhan for MacLeans in 1977 I was astonished by his insights,using ‘process’rather than ‘content’ investigation into the future demise of print media. This remarkable man (already suffering from early stages of brain stem cancer), clearly predicted the demise of ALL conventional media because of a coming digital electronic revolution. He foresaw the old information hardware would have a terrible time attempting to adapt to a sweeping switch to digital software.
McLuhan went from a top-notch academic to media guru pop-star, slumped into obscurity for a time due to out-raged criticism from senior print defenders, then over the past decade has recovered post-humously to be the man who correctly predicted where we are now (he predicted the Internet in the 1960’s).
His emphasis on holistic process instead of old style linear content as a tool to investigate and understand drastic changes in our world was of immense value.
Had the old hardware major print & TV out-lets had paid attention earlier, they would not be suffering the current devastating digital consequences and desperately applying band-aids.
Casey Baldwin
May 31, 2011
Lois Tuffin is right, but she
Lois Tuffin is right, but she is modest in making her point. As managing editor of Metroland’s Peterborough This Week, she has helped guide an enthusiastic staff to a record number of community depth journalism awards. Most recently, they were honoured for examining in great detail the street people of Peterborough, naming names and showing faces and, most important, the cost of homelessness in lives and public funds. I don’t see this kind of courageous reporting in the paid dailies any more, but Lois is leading the way in her free paper community newspaper company. Watch for more.
June 1, 2011
The problems with Mr.
The problems with Mr. Goldstein thesis are several fold. First, by focusing only on circulation, he misses the key area where there has been some recent new-found growth, readership. Indeed, the long downturn in circulation that has been going on for over a half century has slowed and new readership is being picked up, especially amongst those who many see as the hardest nut to crack: young people. Check out recent surveys by PEJ showing role of Facebook in generating audiences for news, etc.
Second, Goldstein’s thesis assumes that newspapers are only providing news if ink is stuck to papers, but in a world that is increasingly mobile — sociologically and technologically — that is not true. The double exclusion in Goldstein’s thesis is, first, the ‘hyperlinked’, multi-step flow of news and, two, the freebies. A lot is dropped by the sole focus on circulation without adequate treatment of readership and ‘social flow’ of news, info and entertainment.
Third, from the point of view of revenues and profits, we are nowhere near the end of the world and while I am waiting for all full set of 2010 data to come in, the news to date has been peak revenues in 2005/6, flat, plummet (2008-9), expected and early reports of recovery.
Fourth, the thesis cherry-picks McLuhan. While yes McLuhan did say what he is quoting as saying about advertising and the press, but what this paper does not pick up is two other central McLuhanism that are relevant to the case at hand: (1) that ‘old’ media always become the content of the ‘new’ media’ and (2) new media typically recover something that has been lost below the surface. Could that recovered lost thing be new audiences in new ways?
Yes, traditional media forms are in a heightened state of flux and being disassembled, but also reassembled in new forms and with a much more structurally diverse set of arrangements than the past: i.e. core media, non-commercial public, partisan press (the Dominion, Rabble.ca), small commercial (Federated Media), non profit coops (Wikipedia).
Serious issues at hand need much more than the same old calls that ‘new media’ will make ‘old media’ go the way of dinosaurs.
Dwayne
dwmw.wordpress.com