The future of newspapers in an online world

(Newspapers are dead. Long live the news!)

Dirk Singer, Rabbit

Twitter - @dirktherabbit /
blog - liesdamnedliesstatistics.com /
work - therabbitagency.com
 “Demand Media is the answer to the
question, what would Internet
content look like if it was entirely
and solely driven by advertising
revenue?  Content is commissioned
based on an algorithm that
calculates the lifetime value of the
ads that could be run against it.”
Blogger Sage Ross

The future of news /

content online?
The problems newspapers face

• Print costs - on the increase

• Classified advertising - does better online

• The recession, from which the industry will never recover

• ‘News’ in newspapers is by its very nature already old once published

• Top down model, someone chooses what you read for you from on high

• Quite simply it’s a problem of demographics. Especially younger readers are

no longer interested
 Let’s get the bad news
stats out of the way 1st
ABC Jan 08/09/2010

Assuming a conservative figure of an average of 2.5 copies per reader, that’s

3.1+ million national newspaper readers lost 2008-2010
 Or around the
same as the
That’s slightly population of
more than the greater And 500k+ more
population of Manchester + than there are
Wales Liverpool unemployed

Or looking at it another way

And the long term trend

Or looking at it even longer term,

since 1951 the UK population has
gone up 25% but newspaper
circulations have gone down 30%

And newspaper readers are

getting older. In the US, 2/3 of
the over 55s read a newspaper
every day, for 18-34 year olds
that’s 23%
And in the US...
• Newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the last 25 years while unique
readership of online news is up 34 million in the last 5 years

• Newspaper advertising fell nearly 19 percent this year while web advertising is up 9
percent and mobile advertising is up 18 percent

• More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC, CBS, and
NBC had been airing all-new content every minute of every day since 1948

• We have access to more than 1 trillion web pages, 100,000 iPhone apps, and send
more text messages a day than there are people on the planet

• (From blogger / publisher Arianna Huffington at an FTC Conference on the Future

of Journalism in Washington DC)
 “The thing that worries me most at
the moment about the condition of
journalism is, frankly, who’s going
to pay for the journalists and the
journalism in 10 years’ time? My
kids wouldn’t dream of buying a
newspaper — and we are a
newspaper household.”
BBC Presenter and former
newspaper editor, Andrew Marr

The morning paper just isn’t as much of an ‘essential’ anymore

Newspapers no longer ‘essential’
From Pew Research in the US:
The importance of word of C'#')-#+%2-#'02-(#0"#')-#A?#C.C7-#85610+)-.#

mouth and personalisation %#+54/-<#+),30"7#')%'#D%&-6,,*(#3)0&)#0+#

• Fewer than half of Americans (43%) say4%80.1<#6-&,20"7#')-#E,,71-#,$#+,&0%1#
that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in
!"#$%&'(#')%"*+#',#')-#%./-"'#,$#+,&0%1#2-.0%(#
their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local
"-'3,4*+(#.40/-+#2,4-#'4%$$0&#',#&-4'%0"#*-<#
3,4.#,$#2,5')#0+#6-&,20"7#2,4-#028,4'%"'#
newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.3-6+0'-+#')%"#E,,71-#0'+-1$(#.-+80'-#)%/0"7#%#
3)-"#0'#&,2-+#',#+84-%.0"7#"-3+9###
')04.#,$#0'+#'4%$$0&9
:-;/-#%14-%.<#2-"'0,"-.#')-#=>?#@070'%1#
• +'5.<(#3)0&)#+),3-.#')%'#0"#')-#AB#$40-".+#%4-#
Only 27% of generation Y (post 1977) read a newspaper the previous day compared to 55% of those
born pre 1946 F-%"3)01-#%&&,4.0"7#',#G0'30+-(#')-#20&4,H
')-#2,+'#'45+'-.#+,54&-#,$#"-3+9###
61,770"7#81%'$,42#=30''-4#,/-4',,*#AB#
"-3+8%8-4+#0"#'-42+#,$#,"10"-#4-%&)#0"#F%4&)9
• Less than a quarter of those younger than age 40 (23%) say they would miss the local newspaper
they read most often a lot if it were to go out of business or shut down. That compares with 33%
of those ages 40 to 64 and 55% of those age 65 and older
“There have always been millions of brilliant minds in the human population...journalism
in the past limited our access to these minds, so we perceived that top papers had the
“few” people worth spending to see. But now that I can find you, or anyone else I deem
smart or wise or reporting real news that I find useful, I can flow to this huge real supply
of intelligence. The profits disappear as the friction between content supply and demand
are gone. “
(Ben Kunz, from planning shop Media Associates and editor of ‘Thought Gadgets’)
Most essential media (Ofcom)

Only 4% of adults chose newspapers and magazines as most

essential media. For 16-24 year olds mobiles are second
ahead of PC+Internet
 +##$)"#$7.)#%.#)$&+$&.$
B1%'-+$C$A(2()&'$D(E#+F$+)4-*6 (901%)&.)$.#/+$+14%3#$L40$
$!"(+$'(.V+$(.)1$)"#$)%#.-$
$$ 8%19$NSK$(.$;<<;P,$/"('#$1.'*$
/#FE#$W4+)$9#.)(1.#-X$!"&.V+$
G4)$18$&''$314.)%(#+$ JQK$+&*$)"#$+&9#$&514)$
)1$)"#(%$1.'(.#$#-()(1.+,$
Trusted media (TNS - Dec 2008)
+4%E#*#-,$)"#$HI$"&-$)"#$
'1/#+)$&914.)$18$)%4+)$81%$
.#/+0&0#%+$&%#$%#&3"(.2$91%#$ .#/+0&0#%+$L-1/.$8%19$Q<K$

0#10'#$)"&.$#E#%$Y$W4+)$.1)$(.$ (.$;<<JP6
.#/+0&0#%+,$/()"$;JK$+&*(.2$
0%(.)6$
)"#*$@"(2"'*$)%4+)#-F$L&.$=M$1.$
&$+31%#$18$NON<P$.#/+0&0#%+6

High trust’ UK Global

Friends 45% 42%

TV 35% 41%

Online News 40% 40%

Newspapers 23% 39%

Blogs 6% 10%
 “Let’s assume you’re a mid-level
“Let’s talk about Afghanistan.
government executive, and it’s a
How many free bloggers are there
crime to leak information for
that are in a safe-house in
purposes of discussion. Are you
Afghanistan with the necessary
willing to leak to a blogger who has
support structure to do the kind
no track record of protecting his or
of deep investigative reporting on
her own sources, versus the New
what’s really going on in the war?
York Times, which routinely sends its
I’m not talking about the ones
people to jail over this question of a
that are embedded in the
shield law.”
government.”
(Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google)

But - people still want news from respected sources

96% of ‘new news’ broken by traditional media
 1 - The hybrid future
and the rise of media 2 - The print publication
brands as an elite product

Two ways newspapers will evolve

 "Not all readers demand
such quality, but the
educated, opinion-leading,
news-junkie core of the
audience always will. They
will insist on it as a defense
against "persuasive
communication," the
euphemism for advertising,
public relations and spin
that exploits the confusion
of information overload.
“Readers need and want to
be equipped with truth-
based defenses.”
Philip Meyer, author of The
Vanishing Newspaper: Saving
Journalism in the Information
Age

Newspapers as an ‘elite’
product
“Those papers that wake up
in time will become a
journalistic hybrid
combining the best aspects
of traditional print
newspapers with the best of
what the Web brings to the
table.”
(Arianna Huffington)

A hybrid future
"This isn't just a kind of fad from someone who's an enthusiast of technology.   I'm afraid you're
not doing your job if you can't do those things.   It's not discretionary..."

“...if you don't like it, if you think that level of change or that different way of working isn't
right for me, then go and do something else, because it's going to happen." 

Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC Global News

Every journalist is a now a

potential blogger
And they feed off blogs

• A study by George Washington

University and Cision found that 89%
of journalists turn to blogs for
research, 65% to social media sites
like Facebook, 52% to Twitter.  

• And Wikipedia?  Over 6/10 (61%)

consult it.

• Overall 55% of journalists thought

that social media was either
somewhat or very important

• However, at the same time 84% said

it was ’slightly less’ or ‘much less’
reliable than traditional media.
PWC - Forget
newspapers or TV

• We now have ‘media brands’

• “The media pillars of the future will

be trusted brands. There will still be
a role for news brands and premium
content.

• “Let’s be clear about this. While

social networking and user-
generated content are important,
the consumer still values brands and
content.

• “We need to stop talking about the

demise of newspapers and start
talking about the rise of news
brands.” (Marcel Fenez, PWC)
What’s the difference between these two?
Spot the difference?

• They both are the online versions of traditional media properties...and are
becoming increasingly important to both organisations

• They have both acquired a life of their own outside their traditional media
parent

• They both give journalists an outlet for news and views beyond the
traditional media (staff blogs, wider range of content)

• They both use images and text based stories

• ....and they both use audio and video

 Is she a writer, a
broadcaster or blogger?
The job of the journalist / blogger

(From Editor and Publisher)

1.Long-form stories and features....but less of those

2.Regular updates during the day - essentially short updates and articles

3.Instant updates - basically tweets

So in summary....
• Print media is in a long cycle of decline, and that won’t end with the
recession

• The print demographic is getting older, especially for the under 30s, print
media simply isn’t on their radar or is part of their lives

• Printed newspapers and magazines won’t die out, but they will become more
specialised, and focus less on news and more on features and investigations

• New and traditional media is converging - traditional media outlets online

adopting new media practices. Journalists acting more like bloggers

• In future it will be less about newspapers, television etc but more about
generic, trusted media brands
What does this mean for brand communicators?
• Stop thinking in terms of print / broadcast / online outlets - think of where content
can go across news brands

• Personalise your information to the journalist / blogger concerned - they are

brands in their own right. What outlets does s/he have other than the normal
publication. Is s/he active on Twitter, does s/he have a blog - both an official and
unofficial

• Be aware of a reduced news cycle - the press release loop where you go through 12
people to get it approved doesn’t work anymore
What does this mean for brand communicators?

• Stop thinking of the big number. Journalists read blogs. Blogs affect search.
Even a blog with 100 daily readers can have an impact of what people think about
you

• Without engaging in brand spam, think about how you can integrate your news
operation into social media as a whole
Thank you!
Any questions, dirk@therabbitagency.com