All over the U.S., newspapers are suffering. Ad revenue is down, layoffs imminent. Say the analysts: it’s all the Internet’s fault.

In a NYT piece, Richard Pérez-Peña muses on the tough times newspapers like the San Diego Union-Tribune, among others, is facing. Circulation is down but the irony is that readers have increased for some major newspapers – online.

Pérez-Peña says that advertising traditionally rose and fell with the overall economy. In the last 12 to 18 months, the link doesn’t seem to be there. Yes, combined print and online ad revenue fell by 7 percent in 2007. But last year also saw an accelerated trend of advertising shifting to the Internet. Despite newspaper advertising slowing, “the national ad market is still strong,” said Alexia Quadrani, an analyst at Bear Stearns & Company.

The accusation levelled at newspapers is their poorly adapting to the new Internet era and lack of creativity at selling ads. But despite the increase of readership (via online means), the truth is advertisers pay only 5 cents on average to reach an Internet reader as compared to a dollar for print readers. Good news for advertisers but rather sobering for print publications.

How does a print publication stay competitive and maintain profit margins when faced with a juggernaut like the Internet? Readers are no longer dependant on newspapers as their sole source of information when they can get the latest updates from many sources via Google news. The thing is, you don’t. Competing with the Internet is an exercise in futility. For a newspaper to remain relevant in the Information Age, it has to go beyond the broadsheet and more fully embrace new media.

To ‘get with the times’, newspapers will have to change not just in their approach to news dissemination but in their operations. Instead of online sites supplementing their print counterparts, it might just end up being the other way around. Perhaps newspapers may have to take their cue from radio – surviving despite being bested by superior technology.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm under Internet, Opinion.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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