It's hard not to look at the latest newspaper circulation numbers and gasp a little bit. Yeah, the economy is bad, yeah, readers are shifting to the Internet (though not necessarily newspaper sites on the Internet), but this latest round of double-digit drops among the nation's largest papers is pretty striking.
The New York Post and Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Down 20 percent. The Newark Star-Ledger, Miami Herald and San Francisco Chronicle: Down about 16 percent apiece. The New York Daily News, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer and Houston Chronicle: Off about 14 percent each. On average, the 395 dailies measured by the Audit Bureau of Circulations posted a 7 percent decline in circulation in the past six months.
We're seeing even more severe declines in advertising revenue this quarter, but that's more closely tied to the economy. These falloffs in circulation reflect an even more fundamental problem: Customers are finding daily newspapers less and less relevant to their daily lives.
It's no wonder why: Most of these papers are still publishing basically the same product they put out decades ago, with too-thin local coverage, unnecessary national and international news, redundant sports and business agate and anachronisms like Dear Abby and Peanuts. These hoary features may be dressed up in fancy redesigns, but they're still less and less relevant to readers in an Internet/iPhone/Twitter/American Idol/financial meltdown/swine flu/fantasy sports kind of world.
It's hard to see how this steep decline into oblivion can be halted, much less reversed. Can newspapers truly reinvent themselves? Can they quickly make a full transition to the Web with some semblance of their audiences, advertisers and brands? So far, the answers to these questions appear to be: no.
But I'll bet at least one of these papers tries a Wingo-like contest or some such nonsense to try to goose circulation one last time. Hell, it worked a generation or two ago!
And one more thought: These lousy circulation numbers presage (surprise) yet another round of bad ad revenue numbers next quarter and beyond. That's because newspapers can't command the same ad rates when circulation is dropping so much. Even if the circulation bleeding is stanched (unlikely), the advertising revenue problems will continue to multiply.
Why would one gasp at something that was entirely foreseeable, and which one predicted?
People have looked at the business model, the electronic competition, the viewing preferences of younger people and talked about this since at least the mid to late 90s.
The mainstream press talked about how stupid people with clear vision were, and put on an elaborate and arrogant cloak of condescension toward their rising competition.
Given the behavior of pompous and overpaid journalists, what's not to love here?
If they didn't know this was coming - it is entirely because they refused to acknowledge it. They could have prepared and had an exit strategy.
Cry me a river, then build a bridge and get over it.
Posted by: Solitude | April 27, 2009 at 06:13 PM