People still buy and read newspapers, advertisers still pay for ads in print and many newspapers still make a profit.
Three-quarters of U.S. adults, almost 171 million people, read a newspaper in print or online in the past week, according to a Scarborough Research study printed Tuesday. Scarborough Research measures audiences for the newspaper industry.
“While our data does show that print newspaper readership is slowly declining, it also illustrates that reports about the pending death of the newspaper industry are not supported by audience data,” said Gary Meo, Scarborough Research”s Senior Vice President of Print and Digital Media Services. “Given the fragmentation of media choices, printed newspapers are holding onto their audiences relatively well and this is refreshing news.”
Refreshing, yes. Knowing that our paper and newspapers in general still affect change or at least thought makes it evident that my industry isn”t dying.
“Printed newspapers have been trusted sources of news and information for decades, and many newspapers have continued that tradition by successfully extending their brands into the digital space,” Meo said. “In doing so, they are attracting an audience that has even stronger socioeconomic status ? equally upscale with their print brethren, but younger.”
Although circulation fluctuates for the Record-Bee, it”s not flailing.
“Circulation at the three national papers, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and at small and mid-sized papers did better than at the metros, according to the State of the News Media by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. “At the metropolitan area newspapers, losses of 10 percent or more in a single year were not uncommon. A few papers showed small circulation gains in 2008, but that was very much the exception.”
Online readership at the Record-Bee rises every month by 30 percent to 40 percent compared with 2008, according to a Web site report.
Many of the reports pounding funeral drums for newspapers are based on the fact that some newspaper companies are failing and some papers closed down. But the problem doesn”t apply to all publications.
Here are some of the scary facts.
The Rocky Mountain News closed in February, although Jim Sheeler of the Denver paper won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing about a Marine who informs families their soldier died in Iraq and then helps them cope. I probably cried a dozen times when I read the story.
The San Francisco Chronicle has been losing money for years and continues to find ways, such as glossy paper, to attract readers and increase revenue.
“Some large newspaper companies were close to failing,” according to the State of the News Media report. “The Tribune Company, burdened with the huge $13 billion debt taken on a year earlier in real estate mogul Sam Zell”s acquisition of the company, filed for bankruptcy reorganization in December. GateHouse Media was effectively broke by mid-2008, and Journal Register, Philadelphia Newspapers, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune went into bankruptcy early in 2009.”
“Most of the papers of all these companies, however, are still profitable, and could continue in business once separated from the parent company”s debt,” according to the report.
Readers have to remember that small papers still make money because they are an important source of information for readers, therefore a good medium for advertisers.
“In the current calculus, it does not make sense for newspapers to kill their print versions and go online-only,” according the State of the News Media report. “The Sunday paper and some late-in-the-week issues still are flush with ads, and print still commands premium ad pricing. Papers still make roughly 90 percent of their revenue from print and, although the numbers vary by paper, the cost of printing and delivering the printed newspaper averages 40 percent of costs. For now, it doesn”t add up to sacrifice potentially 90 percent of revenues to save 40 percent of costs.”
So take ease, newspapers aren”t bowing out yet.
Katy Sweeny is a staff reporter for the Record-Bee. She can be reached at ksweeny@record-bee.com or 263-5636, ext. 37.
