Stop the press: newspaper ad revenues plummet yet again
The newspaper industry has lost money to the Internet for years now, and its remaining pools of profit are drying up faster than ever. The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) is reporting a 9.4% decrease in ad revenue profits for newspapers when comparing 2006 to 2007.
The real disappointment here is a lack of innovation. Newspapers have lots of compelling content with well-trained writers that know how to keep an audience’s attention. But, despite some efforts by newspaper business owners to earn money on the web, they aren’t making up for the losses in print revenues.
“The NAA reported that online revenue now represents 7.5% of total newspaper ad revenue in 2007 compared to 5.7% in 2006,” according to Editor & Publisher.
“That growth could not stave off the losses in the print however. National print advertising revenue dropped 6.7% to $7 billion last year. Retail slipped 5% to $21 billion. Classified plunged 16.5% to $14.1 billion.”
An initial reluctance by the newspaper industry to open their content up for public digestion on the web put them behind the curve in an online marketplace where keyword-based advertising (a la Google Adsense) is the simplest way to make money.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some newspaper companies have decided to distribute online only, like the Southport Reporter.
A potential game changer is Amazon’s eBook reader, the Kindle. Existing newspaper companies can easily port their content to the Kindle, which provides a dynamite delivery system, and charge an appropriate fee. With a balance toward more content than advertising, newspapers could also intersperse some advertising into that content, though paying subscribers may be cynical of a move like that.
The game is changing and newspaper companies will adapt or face irrelevance.
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