Press in the age of Internet
By: Farooq Sulehria
On December 31, Newsweek will publish its last print edition and assume an all-digital format in early 2013. Explaining the shift, Newsweek says: “…our business has been increasingly affected by the challenging print-advertising environment, while Newsweek’s online and e-reader content has built a rapidly growing audience through Apple, Kindle, Zinio and Nook.”
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) notes that since 2005, Newsweek’s circulation dropped by about half, to 1.5 million, and advertising pages plunged more than 80 percent. The magazine’s annual losses have lately reached roughly $40 million.
Perhaps fearing its own future, WSJ mourns: “The switch will make Newsweek the most widely read magazine yet that has given up on the print media, a signpost of how traditional print news outlets are being battered by an exodus of readers and advertisers to the Web.”
Newsweek is not alone in suffering this fate. It seems the commercial system of newspaper journalism, introduced in the mid-19th century, is disintegrating.
Journalism used to be a partisan affair. For instance, early 19th-century working-class press in England had a far bigger audience than the elitist press. When state repression failed to contain the radical press, “market forces” were unleashed to tame progressive publishers. “Market forces” turned newspaper publishing into a costly affair.
A publication could no longer survive mainly on its sales alone, but had to have advertising revenue. Hence, newspapers were published at a high cost but sold at lower prices. The deficit was compensated through advertising revenue. Until recently, if in Britain the balance of newspaper revenue between sales and advertising was 50-50, the global average was even more tilted towards advertising: 57-43.
And in the USA, the epitome of the commercial system, the balance was 87 percent advertising, 13 percent sales. On the other hand, progressive newspapers, denied corporate advertising, did not survive despite high circulations.
For instance, in Britain The Daily Citizen, launched in 1912 with a capital of only £30,000 and subscribed to mainly by trade unions, reached a circulation of 250,000 at its peak within two years of its launching. In 1914, the more leftwing Daily Herald had a circulation of 250,000. But neither of them survived.
On its deathbed the Herald was read by 4.7 million people – nearly twice as many as the readerships of The Guardian, The Times and The Financial Times combined. Dozens of such examples can be cited from around the world.
With the advent of the Internet, the commercial model began to crumble. Hungry for more readers, and more influence, the mainstream press rushed for online editions, offered free. Online audience was won at the cost of print readership. As a result, between 2004 and 2009, the US newspaper industry lost 34 percent of its readers and the UK industry lost 22 percent.
Hence, newspapers and magazines increasingly consider the option of giving up print editions altogether. Thirty years ago, the French daily Le Monde drew 60- 70 percent of its revenue from advertising. Now, it is less than 25 percent. Both major revenue streams of the press, sales and advertising, are declining.
It is interesting that one sector where many reporting jobs are being cut in the west is foreign news. Most media outlets have sacrificed international coverage since it is costly. For instance, the share of international coverage in four major British newspapers – The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and The Mirror – fell by 40 percent in the last thirty years.
The same trend applies elsewhere in Europe and in North America. How ironic that in the age of globalisation, journalism is localising itself.
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