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The sky is falling on print newspapers faster than you think
 A guardian of a free society continues its decline, in moral, spiritual as well as financial terms.Last October, a McKinsey report declared, “We believe that many of the people likely to abandon print newspapers and print consumer magazines have already done so…. We believe most of this core audience — households that have retained their print subscriptions despite having access to broadband — will continue to do so for now, effectively putting a floor on the print markets.” The instrument the chap in the photo is holding with the wires attached is the next item to go. Wow. Just because of inertia? Is the only medium-term threat to print the fact that most of its current audience will gradually die over the next 30 years? That would be great news, especially because nearly all newspapers still get most of their revenue from print advertising. Not just inertia. Some people have birds. Some still wrap fish. But it doesn’t feel right in a world in which even mature adults’ media consumption habits seem to be quickly evolving. There's a reason why Geritol and Depends are advertised on the network evening news... The customers they really want have their noses buried in their phones. Then, amid the hubbub about the Boston Globe’s delivery problems, I was struck by the Globe’s statement that they have only 115,000 daily print subscribers, and only 205,000 on Sunday. Really? I had had a sense that the Globe was still much bigger than that. So I poked around online, and, indeed found much larger numbers for Globe print circulation. But they were from 2013, which is the last time print newspaper circulation figures were widely reported. The simple chart below lays out the numbers for “total average print circulation” of the nation’s 25 largest newspapers as of March 2013. These are the basis for the figures you get if you Google search the issue or look for a list on Wikipedia. Then the chart compares these with the number of copies most recently reported to the Alliance for Audited Media (in September 2015) for “individually paid print circulation,” that is the number of copies being bought by subscription or at newsstands. This is the best indication of consumer demand for the product. In both cases, the figures are for weekday average circulation. Sunday numbers are generally higher. Posted by: badanov 2016-01-22 |
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