Charles Layton, in American Journalism Review, revisits my prediction from last year that it will take several years before online newspaper revenue gains catch up to the huge declines in print revenue. I predicted gloom and doom while the industry struggles to cross this revenue chasm.
Layton's conclusion: I was probably optimistic. Uh-oh.
I'm not surprised. Newspaper print revenue is now falling almost twice as fast as it was when I did that study last fall. And online revenue growth is slowing. Both are partly the result of the slowdown in the overall economy. I'd argue that the print revenue drop will slow a bit as the economy comes back, and that online revenue growth with increase as advertisers and newspapers get smarter about online advertising. It's hard, as I noted at the time, to do accurate predictions based on a quick snapshot of current conditions.
But the deep structural issues with the newspaper business remain, and that was the overall point of my original posts, which Layton's piece echoes: There's a huge revenue gap before the online business replaces the print business. And unfortunately, it's likely that many newspapers will fall into that gap and never come out. That's why newspaper companies need to be taking drastic steps—as I've outlined—to transform their business. Otherwise, they're doomed.
Well, two interesting notes here: one, that your post initially attracted so little attention. The other: that someone is now calling Mark Potts an optimist!
Posted by: Michael Rogers | May 30, 2008 at 01:12 PM
The irony is that newspapers are laregly sitting silent on the biggest story of the last 50 years: the President of the USA is a lying War Criminal!
Posted by: gandhi | June 01, 2008 at 09:47 PM