Should Newspapers Be Happy With Lower Circulation?
from the ROI dept
We keep seeing stories bemoaning the drop in newspaper circulation numbers among major newspapers, with lots of blame being thrown at the internet (Google and Craigslist most often). However, it appears that some newspapers have finally realized that there's as cost side to the cost-benefit equation -- though, they may have forgotten some of the benefit side. Apparently a bunch of big newspapers have been cutting out expensive aggressive subscriber acquisition techniques (via Romenesko) that result in subscribers who aren't worth very much to the newspaper and often drop their subscriptions before too long anyway. Of course, there is also a flip side to this. Getting more users is a good thing if you can provide them something of value and make money that way. The problem wasn't necessarily that the newspapers spent too much trying to get these users, but that they then didn't provide enough value to make back that investment (and more).
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Filed Under: business models, circulation, newspapers
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Buggy Whips
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Re: Buggy Whips
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Re: Re: Buggy Whips
What is irreplaceable is having someone watching our city government. In a large city with TV stations, that takes its place, but in a small city without a newspaper the elected officials do pretty much anything they want with little oversight.
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re:Haywood/Buggy Whips
I don't think that the buggy whips are a good example because that is a specific product that is manufactured. Newspapers and organizations create content, not the newspaper itself. If the story was about how it affects printing companies than the buggy whips would make a good analogy.
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Newspaper Web site and Popups
Yet, I notice the most common use of legitimate pop up advertising seems to be TV, radio and Newspaper web sites. Ironically, ad revenue on the web is starting to match their print ad income.
Bill
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Less is More?
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where else will it come from?
But someone has to pay those reporters. You have to sell a whole lotta newspapers at 50 cents a pop to pay a stable of reporters, so I guess it's gotta be the advertisers. But advertisers who pay a few thousand for a newspaper ad will not be willing to pay that for a web ad. They just don't see the same value. The net income isn't dollar-for-dollar "replacing" lost print revenue.
So newspapers are left cutting staff, which makes the paper less valuable to readers, who stop subscriptions, which makes advertisers less willing to cut print revenue even further.
It all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, so shut up already!!
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