The death of a thousand cuts
An interesting article in this morning’s subscription-only Australian Financial Review on the receding fortunes of newspaper publishers.
Entitled Paper cuts show publishers are hurting, the article by Sean Aylmer starts by quoting the usually unflappable Rupert Murdoch questioning whether traditional newspaper publishing has a future in News Corp.
The article points to job cuts right through the newspaper industry, questioning just how bad the industry is given the strong economic cycle we are in.
And the reason for the decline; circulation and advertising are both sliding, contrasting with the popularity of online newspapers, with 44 million people in the United States alone reading online every week.
“In the past few years, the problems for the industry have been compounded by the Internet.”
Continues Ayler, “As internet usage explodes, helping the enormous expansion in broadband usage, readers and advertisers are shifting from newspapers to the Internet.”
The next step of course will be increased gains for online advertising and online marketing; at Wiliam, we're seeing growing interest in all forms of online advertising as eyeballs shift from offline to online.
