How long before Newspapers die?

This. I can say I fall into this category as well. Why buy a fucking newspaper when you can get the same information somewhere else for free? And, yes, now I've grown to expect my information to be free. That's why this ship sails within 10 years.

 

I subscribe to our paper because it only costs employees $1 a week (and I get that back in the coupons) but other than that, I don't think I've paid money for a newspaper in 15 years, the exception being I'm out of town and want to see what other markets are doing layout wise. In college, we got papers for free (the local, plus New York Times) but I only read those on Sundays.

 

You couldn't count on Facebook and your local TV news to present the breadth of local coverage a newspaper (or, yes, a newspaper's website done well) does. Not even a reasonable facsimile.

 

For the life of me, I can't understand why newspapers don't pull the plug on the print edition NOW. Why not speed the process? Oh I forgot, the print edition is still the only part of the newspaper that can attract ads. Nobody's lining up to take out ads on newspaper websites.

 

Because old people still like to read the paper. Because there are lots of people with expendable income who advertisers want to be in front of who still want the physical paper. Because the owners/publishers will lose out on those valuable legal ads from the city, county and school districts. It's not about pulling the plug, but rather slowly dim the lights like what's been happening for years.

 

Based on the people willing to work for free, seems like newspapers will last forever.

 

I can tell you that I learn more about what's going on in my neighborhood -- my zip code, specifically -- from our neighborhood's Facebook page than I would ever learn from the two major metropolitan newspapers that are available in my area. One of those two major metropolitan newspapers won a Pulitzer in 2014. I can get a broad swath of what's going on around the larger metropolitan area from those newspapers, yes, but if I want to know why the sheriff's helicopter was buzzing the neighborhood at 2:32 a.m. or what our state rep is up to these days or what's going on at my kid's school, well, as it turns out, nobody does hyperlocal better than the locals.

That hyperlocal news has zero value to advertisers. But it has great value to me.

And is exactly why smaller newspapers should be fine in the future, particularly if they adapt to providing their news reports on the devices on which people want to receive their news. I see as many kids in Small Town USA tapping around on their mobile phones as I do in Silicon Valley. If these smaller newspapers can find ways to generate revenue in ways other than selling advertising (note that I said "other than," not "instead of"), they'll probably be around well into the future. Those ways include sponsoring events, setting up loyalty programs, and memberships that provide access to valuable premium content.

Smaller papers that adapt will be around. The New York Times isn't going anywhere. It's papers that are of roughly the size and scope of the two papers that serve my area that are proving themselves more and more expendable. They can't be The New York Times, and they won't invest in local news in a way that makes them valuable to readers.

 

So your suggestion is to sponsor events (spend money), set up a loyalty program (give stuff away) and provide access to premium content (keep stuff out of the paper)?

Yeah, that's going to save the small town paper. Sure.

 

It's better than sitting around wishing the clock would go back 50 years.

 

FNF, you've hit on the major problem going forward. Sell memberships for premium content? Facebook content is (in theory) completely tailored to your interests, and it's freebie.

People expect Internet content to be free, and it's still pretty easy to ignore, avoid or "skip" online ads.

Where's the revenue coming from?

 

That's your response? I was hoping for something a little more convincing.

 

The days of a newspaper being a money-making machine are over. I think we're comfortably past the point where we can say, "Well, the newspaper is still making money, just not as much as before." Especially in that medium tier, many newspapers are actually at that point where they are actually spending more to produce the paper than the revenue that's being generated.

Studies show that time readers spend with the print product is declining. More and more advertisers will start to question why they're advertising in it if nobody is seeing the advertising. In the medium tier (from small metros up), classified is D-E-A-D dead. Harping about inadequate sales people won't solve anything. Somebody trying to sell print advertising is like a car sales person hawking Crown Victorias in a Prius world. Those sales people face a formidable challenge.

However: Local newspapers' brand equity still exists. This is proven by watching local newspapers' web traffic vs. digital-only local news operations. In a comScore study cited in Matthew Hindman's report, "Stickier News," digital-only upstarts' traffic is a rounding error compared to the established local media company. (Read more here: http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Stickier-News-Matthew-Hindman.pdf)

In the absence of being able to depend almost solely on advertising, how do you generate revenue? Some ideas:

• Drastically raising the price of the print product. This actually has worked pretty well for The Dallas Morning News, among others (One on one- Jim Moroney, A.H. Belo Corp. - News & Tech: News Yes, people will grumble, but those who value the content and that format will continue to pay. Noted: This is not sustainable. That market does tend to skew older -- and not 40-and-older older, but 70-and-older older.
• Digital paywalls. These haven't worked so well to this point, unfortunately, for newspapers other than The Wall Street Journal. Why? Because too many newspapers don't offer anything more for the money. It's just the same stuff. There is a market for premium content; sports junkies, particular, have been shown to pay for premium digital content. The success of the MLB AtBat app is a prime example. But premium content alone isn't going to do it, because that's the nichiest of niche markets.
• Gathering data. Digital advertising alone will not support the modern media enterprise, but it still can be a component. However, you have to be gathering audience data. That data has value to the advertiser. Going to an advertiser and saying "I can put your ad in front of 300,000 pairs of eyeballs," that's one thing, but going to an advertiser and saying, "I can put your ad in front of 30,000 eyeballs whose registered identity and habits on our site suggest they have an interest in your product and live in this zip code" is another entirely. And the technology exists to do that.
• Sponsored events. Yes, the revenue potential has to be there to outpace the costs. But many community events can be put on more cheaply than the nightly cost of printing and distributing the paper. Again, take advantage of that brand equity.
• Loyalty programs, centered around digital registration/subscriptions. There's quid-pro-quo here: The newspaper rewards a digital reader's engagement with an offer from an advertiser looking for exposure.

So, hopefully, @Doc Holliday , that response is more satisfactory.

The tl;dr: There's no one solution, and what worked even two years ago might well be outdated now. Media companies will need to employ many different tactics to generate revenue in the future and continue to be viable. Costs can only be cut so far, and most newspapers are at the point where further cost-cutting is going to provide negative returns. The creative ones will thrive. The ones who want to continue to do it the same way they were doing it even 10 years ago, well, they won't.