The challenges facing traditional print news media are increasing. Their online offerings are not delivering.
In the US, amid the ongoing story of revenue declines among print newspapers comes the news that online ad revenue dropped 13.4% industry-wide during the first quarter of 2009, for a total of $696 million. The drop represents the steepest online decline since the Newspaper Association of America started breaking out online revenue as a separate category.
I put this down to two reasons:
1. Pure internet plays are not concerned about cannibalising offline ad sales. They can therefore be adventurous and focus entirely on online delivery. Their online print cousins are still doing everything to protect their offline ad revenues. It is a difficult bridge to cross.
2. Talk of traditional print media (newspapers) starting online subscriptions (charging for access) will decimate online ad sales. Digital ad agencies want volume. Subscription sales do not offer that.
This is clearly a difficult time. New Zealand's two major newspaper publishers (Fairfax and APN) have both been laying off staff as they try to restructure. And that is the key story today. This is not just about recession. This is about a fundamental restructuring of information delivery.
Today, a revolution is taking place - evolution was last year's story.
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