That’s right, blame the smartphone and Steve Jobs — not Facebook and Google — for the damage being done to established or legacy media, especially print and broadcast TV. It is the rapid growth of smartphone ownership that is driving the destruction of the ad bases for legacy media, especially in the core consumer market for such media — people aged 50 and over — the boomers. And with smartphone ownership at or above saturation levels for younger demographics, it’s no wonder analysts are forecasting even greater falls in print ad revenues and why broadcast TV groups here are slashing the value of their broadcasting businesses.
A report from a leading UK analysts group Enders, contains a couple of key points and forecasts that will terrify print media companies and shareholders, and probably force media owners like Rupert Murdoch and his clan to split News Corp to save it from implosion, as well forcing the likes of Trinity Mirror and the Daily Mail Group to either fold, break up or merge. Newspaper and magazine owners around the world will be forced have to protect the rest of the businesses by isolating the legacy assets, as US groups such as Gannett have tried to do with mixed success.
For News Corp Australia, where many believe, King Canute-like, that they and their employers will escape the remorseless forces of falling newspaper sales and tumbling print ad revenues (Fairfax believes it can eke out a living for a little while longer, but is planning another reorganisation of print to boost the digital side), life in the next three years is going to be one continual slide. — Glenn Dyer
The newspapers’ own websites are more convenient to read for free than their hardcopy for fair payment. However I would be quite happy to lose 20 cents of credit every time I clicked on “Read more”. For that matter, it should become cheaper the more I read, with the first five dollars per week providing me with a package deal of so many firewalled pages.
Seeing as the authors must have some sort of copyright on the content, they may be able to legally require Internet providers to pass on royalties in proportion to the number of their pages distributed.
I used to be an avid reader of several newspapers on a daily basis. Today i consume everything through digital devices. Happy to pay subscriptions for those i like. Just far more convenient and in real time.
Newspapers are almost historical documents by the time they are delivered.
The product they are selling in Australia is not worth buying, either in print or digital form. They are party political rags which ignore around 50% of their customer pool in order to cater to right wing ideology.