The Demise of the Newspaper

I bought my local newspaper on a recent Monday and was saddened by how tiny it has become.

About 8 years ago, I was able to get custom circulation reports for the two local daily newspapers from my connections at the Radio Advertising Bureau.  I watched as the number of readers dropped and the advertising rates climbed to make up for the loss of revenue.

The numbers for the morning paper showed that between 2009 and 2014, circulation had dropped 34% while ads rates climbed 18% in just 5 years.  The morning paper has being delivered to only 25% of the households by 2014.

The numbers for the afternoon paper were worse.  In those same 5 years, their circulation dropped 40% while ad prices climbed over 18%. The afternoon paper was being delivered to just 8% of the households by 2014.

The reason all this sadden me is that my parents were big fans of the paper.  I was a paperboy as a kid, delivering my route after school.

Local journalism had it’s home in print.  Sure, we had broadcast media too with TV stations staffed with reporters and some radio stations had a decent news department also, but the newspapers, they were the ones that had the time and space to print the in-depth stories beyond headlines.

The reason the afternoon paper stopped publishing was revenue which was related to circulation.  My numbers show they had less than 13,000 subscribers in 2014 and even with the higher ad rates, they couldn’t sell enough to keep the paper alive.  I’m not sure how the morning paper stays alive these days.  I know the number of readers have continued to drop since 2014.  Those numbers are no longer available for me to research but it’s obvious by the size of the paper.   August 29th the paper had a total of 16 pages, divided into two sections. The first section had 4 advertisers, plus 2 pages of classified ads. The other section had zero regular ads, just a paid legal notice.

Why does advertising matter?  According to Media Landscapes, 80% of the revenue comes from ad sales, not subscriptions.  I paid $1.50 for my 16 page newspaper last month and even thought that is outrageous, it’s not enough to sustain them.

If your business was one of those that used to rely on print ads, you’ve likely switched to something else.  Digital ads or something online has been a favorite experiment for many.  And while I have used digital and bought because of online ads, unless you know what you’re doing, you can get lost.  Also the rules are always changing in the online world as they evolve.  I’ll save my thoughts on digital for another day.

I will however put a plug in for another old time media that is still going strong despite the repeated predictions of its demise.  I’m referring to radio. National numbers say 92% of the population tunes in to a radio station every week.  That’s a far cry from those 8% or 25% numbers I shared a few moments ago referring to newspapers.

My team at WOWO or myself can give you details on what’s been working for the businesses that advertise on WOWO  and create similar success for you too.  Just contact me, Scott@WOWO.com.