Bad News and

Good News
Challenges and Changes in
Print Media
Presentation by Endy M. Bayuni,
Editor-in-chief, The Jakarta Post
at the Asia Pacific Media Forum, Bali March 13-15, 2005

Good News: Print marks its

400th birthday
The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) in its
March Newsletter writes:

2005 marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of

the first newspaper in print. The Gutenberg Museum
in Mainz, Germany, which houses the worlds first
printing press, has told WAN that the birth certificate
of the newspaper Relation was unearthed in the
town archives of Strasbourg, now in France but at
the time a part of the so called Deutsches-Reich.
The evidence is compelling and I think we can all
say Happy 400th Birthday this year to the print
newspaper! --Timothy Balding, the WAN Director
General

Bad News: Print closures/layoffs

Far

Eastern Economic Review

morphs into a monthly journal in
2004
Asiaweek ceases publication in 2001
These are two long established
English-language newsweeklies.
Other similar publications are also
coming under pressure

Bad News: Print woes continue

Falling/stagnant circulation and ads revenues
- Global newspaper advertising revenue rose 2
percent in 2003 from a year earlier and is
forecast to continue a steady increase through
2006.
- Global newspaper circulation declined 0.12
percent in 2003 compared with a
year earlier, but was up 4.75 percent over the
five-year period from 1999 to 2003.
(Source: World Press Trends 2004 a survey of
1,300 publishers and editors from 88 countries
by the World Association of Newspapers)

Bad News: Print is losing

the competition
24-hour

TV and radio news, Cable TV

Dotcoms, online news, bloggers
Internet chat-rooms, text message
- All offer real-time, audio-visual and
greater interactivity compared to
traditional print media

Bad News: Print losing is audience

People are spending less time reading
- The average American spends slightly more than
28 minutes per day reading newspapers.
- Women spend 25 minutes, men spend 30
minutes
- Readers younger than 23 spend 18 minutes a
day, readers older than 60 spend 58 minutes
- Minutes per day spent: Local daily newspaper
22.2; any daily newspaper 28.2; magazines 19.8;
Internet 32.4; television 191.3; radio 191.4
(Source: 2002 Readership Institute)

Good News: Were fighting back

Were

adapting to the new market

reality, were innovating
We have survived earlier threats:
radio in the early 19th century, and
television in the early 1960s
We have been around for 400 years,
we are not taking these latest
threats lying down

Good News: Were innovating

New

format: tabloid, redesign, color

pages
Free newspapers
Online newspapers
Newspaper in Education
Niches: go local, target groups
Convergence/synergy with other
media

Good News: We are more focused

We do what we are good at: Text and
photos
More in-depth, more contextual, more
analytical, go to background of news
We get more of readers quality time
- When reading the newspaper, people are
less likely to be doing other tasks at the
same time than when they are using
television Readership Institute 2002
Survey

Good News: Some of us are doing

better than others (1)
Magazine readership up even as circulation goes down
- In the U.S. magazine readership of 171 continuously
published titles increased 5.3 percent among adults
from 1998 to 2002. Readership growth was fastest
among women and people over 35.
- In 1998 these magazines had an average readership
of 7.7 million adults and average coverage of 3.9
percent of the adult population. By 2002 average
readership had increased to 8.1 million, while average
coverage ticked up to 4 percent.
- That growth is not a function of circulation gains on
the part of the titles measured, but more because
each copy is read by more people.
(Source: August 2002 Media Life)

Good News: Some of us are doing

better than others (2)
Some countries/markets still have low rate
of newspaper penetrations in 2003
- While sales is mostly down in mature
markets like Europe, Japan, Singapore
Australia and New Zealand, and stable in
the U.S., younger markets report
circulation growth such as China (4.1
percent year-on-year and 36 percent over
the last five years), India (9.16 percent
and 23 percent) and Malaysia (4.1 percent
and 9.7 percent)
(Source: World Press Trends 2004/WAN)

Good News: Ads revenues are

holding up, in general

Ad revenue growth/decline
2003

1998-2003

U.S.

+1.9%

-2.9%

Japan

-1.0%

-8.5%

China

+11.7%

+87.0%

Old Europe

+2.0%

+4.5%

Russia

+17%

Source: World Press Trends 2004/WAN

Good News: People read the ads

People rate the advertising content as slightly
more important than the editorial content
Women and heavy readers rate advertising
inserts for food and groceries and clothing and
non-supermarket stores as being more important
than average to them
Men rate these same areas as being less
important than average to them.
Young people and light readers rate classified
advertising as more important to them average
(Source: 2002 survey of American public by
Readership Institute

Finally- Dont write us off

Global circulation figures indicate that the figure for worldwide newspaper readership is well over one billion.
Japan is home to 20 of the world's top 100 largest
newspapers in circulation terms. The United States is next
with 18, followed by China and India at 16 each.
The Norwegians and the Japanese remain the world's
greatest newspaper buyers with, respectively, 684 and
646.9 sales per thousand population each day. Sweden
comes next with 590 followed by Finland with 524.2.
China has the largest total daily circulation of any country
in the world with more than 85 million copies sold, followed
by India (more than 72 million copies), Japan (70,339,000
copies), and the United States (55,185,000 copies).
(Source: World Press Trends 2004/WAN)