How long before Newspapers die?

Would you still have some means of digital delivery of the paper?

I would think you would need that, at a minimum.

 

See my next post on the thread.

 

Yeah, just got to that.

As MC points out, the cost of printing and delivering a dead tree edition is high. It's too high for most papers to justify it.

Giving it away for free doesn't seem to work either.

Digital distribution makes sense, and more people continue to own tablets. I think the biggest problem is that the paper's most likely subscribers -- older people -- are the least likely to have tablets. And, for younger people, the brand equity built up by the local paper over 100 years means nothing. They get their news from 100 different sources, and nearly all of them are free. So, will they pay for a digital subscription if the local paper takes down its website?

Also, I think two of the biggest papers in the country -- the Times and the Journal -- are doing well with their websites, so I don't think you're going to see them lead in this area.

 

Does the Journal have a today's paper app similar to the Times? I don't even know, and I'm a subscriber. It's the best print A1 in newspapers, bar none.

 

But young people don't follow the news, in general. Not in a general sense. They seek news micro-tailored to both their interests and their worldviews. What I don't know is if that's because of their age or because of their generation. In other words, will the grow out of it and into more traditional news consumers? To a degree, they will, I think, particularly on a local scale once they have children and plant roots.

 

Newspapers are a weird mix of high-end disposable product with low brow appeal at a low cost.

That formula worked for so long and that it still does is something truly remarkable.

How long that continues to go on will depend on the market. Some pretty large cities don't have a daily print newspaper now.

I think that print will continue on for decades but how it is delivered, how it is produced and what kind of jobs the newspapers of the future will be will change radically.

 

The biggest problem, among many issues plaguing the industry, is "traditional" hasn't existed for a few years now.

 

Let's re-phrase the question a bit:

When is the last time you learned something completely new — either hard news or sports — by reading the print edition of a newspaper?

If we're cranking out the dead tree edition simply for Dear Abby, comics, Athlete of the Week features and obituaries, then NEWSpapers already are dead.

 

Speaking of tailored content for digital consumers ... Apple ditching Newstand for a new News app for iOS 9.

Apple - Press Info - Apple Announces News App for iPhone & iPad

Apple Introduces 'News' App to Bring Personalized Stories to iOS 9 - Mac Rumors

 

Because a huge hunk of advertising still exists in the print product that would not otherwise. The question is . . . if you abandon all that revenue, will the money you save in abandoning print production and distribution costs make up for that lost revenue?

Print distribution has NEVER been an effective way of delivering news. Even in the salad, days, it always cost more to print and deliver the product than the money earned from circulation. Advertising -- classifieds in particular --- simply allowed this ineffective model to be profitable. A $20 billion loss in yearly classified income is simply too much to overcome. And that was nobody's fault. You cannot compete with free, which is what craigslist basically is.

 

And whose fault is this? You would learn a lot of things in the old print edition if reporters didn't have to tip off the radio stations and their print competitors by putting information online immediately. I know reporters who have found out things that would have been scoops if they were not forced to tell the world at 2 p.m. on twitter. Some sad reporters have told me of such scoops and I've had to check with higher ups and tell them to put the information online NOW before they get fired. Newspapers going "online first" with all their news is hilarious. It's devalued newspapers and killed them. I tell you. Newspapers have been killed by bean counting idiots. Newspapers are not allowed to do things they do well anymore. Instead they are wannabee TV talk shows, and worthless blogospheres. Yes newspapers are worthless. Didn't have to be this way.

 

Newspapers have certainly made missteps, but I'm not sure the print product was salvagable, in the long run, no matter what. Young people don't want it. They don't want to pay for it. They don't want it cluttering their space, primarily. Their music fits in the palm of their hand. Their lifetime of correspondence with people fits in the palm of their hand. Their school work and work fits in their lap. Every movie and TV show they'd ever want to watch fit in the palm of their hand. They don't buy cars or houses. They are, like few generations before them, minimalists.

Why the hell would they make an exception for a clunky newspaper or magazine in which 90 percent of the content is irrelevant to them?