Everyone’s going online, newspaper circulation figures and ad-rates are declining and many people are predicting the realisation of Ghostbuster Egon Spengler’s famous quote, “Print is dead!”
And yet something doesn’t seem right. I remember many years ago buying a PDA that could download my favourite sections of the BBC news site. “Wow, this is the future!” I thought to myself, “No more newpapers, I can get everything I need from this”. But, today am I reading news on my iPhone – no I am not. A quick look around on my commuter train this morning showed the majority of people reading a newspaper with the rest reading books or staring out of the window. A couple of people were using PDAs but only to check e-mail (and yes I did get a few funny looks for peering over their shoulders!). So it would seem that print is very much alive on my train at least. One explanation is the success of free newspapers – by far the majority of papers being read this morning were the London Metro.
Local versions of the Metro are available in urban centres in 23 countries with a total readership of about 23 million. In London, Metro is joined by other free papers such as London Lite, TheLondonPaper and City AM. The circulation of these papers has been increasing with many experiencing record levels this summer. Some people have argued that this is compensated by a corresponding decline in paid-for newpapers. Indeed as we can see below, the Evening Standard has suffered a fall in circulation while the London free press has grown. However the combined readership of these titles is more than four times the initial circulation of the Evening Standard which implies that more people are reading print media in London.
Free press is popular because it doesn’t cost anything either in money or in time since the paper is there at the station for you to pick up or as with London Lite or LondonPaper it is literally thrust into your hand. As MIT professor Dan Ariely explains, we instinctively irrationally overreact to free offers even if it means that quality will be compromised.
This is something that has concerned media commentator Roy Greenslade: "Ultimately, they will breed in people the idea that news shouldn't cost anything, even that news is cheap. But, in fact, news, done well and properly, requires investment and money. Free newspapers by their nature are light on journalistic resources," he said, "They will no doubt tell us what happened - but news should tell us how and why things happen. I fear that approach will be lost."
Because of distribution issues, free papers are limited to areas of high population density, hence their success in cities. So what about print media at a national or even international level? Well there is no doubt that both circulation and readership figures have dropped – the National Readership Survey estimates a 20% decline in the number of adults reading a daily national newspaper between 1992 and 2007. Although this sounds a significant fall, we must remember that the majority of people are still reading print media – the same survey shows that 45% of people read daily national newspapers to which we also need to add people that read Sunday newspapers, regional papers, business and consumer magazines.
We have all made the assumption that people are moving away from print to online to get their content. On the face of it research backs this up – almost all national newspapers have a website where most of the same content is available for free. In three quarters of cases, the website traffic is significantly greater than the print circulation. However if we delve a little deeper, things are not always what they seem. Take The Times for example. Ten times as many people use the website as read the printed paper (16 million monthly users according to ABCe vs 1.7 million people from the NRS). However the ratio is totally reversed if we look at how many people read a typical article - ten times as many people will read it in print as online. How can this be? It comes down to the fact that people use the two types of media in different ways. According to the Quality of Readership Survey, the average reader sees 79% of the printed newspaper while the average person views less than 1% of the TimesOnline website (estimated from data from Alexa and Google News Search). This means that the average article will be read by about 1.4 million people in print and 140,000 people online. There is a similar pattern with other publications which implies that online readership data is often over-egged.
Many PRs are worried about the effect of blogs. Now while undoubtedly influential we must put them into context. The latest data from our national consumer survey UKPulse shows that only 20% of internet users claim to read blogs, which equates to just 13% of the UK population.
I am often accused of being a ‘social media cynic’ here at Metrica but my argument is not that online and social media are not important (they clearly are) but that they should be measured very much as part of the broader media landscape - we take our eye off the mainstream ball at out peril.
I have deliberately made an argument that print media is very much alive. However what the future will bring, I don’t know. Is free print press sustainable? Although it is popular that doesn’t mean it makes money for the media owners. It is estimated that out of 240 free papers, 70% are losing money. Since the only source of revenue is advertising, could an economic downturn cause another shift in the print model or cause its death? In two years time will everyone be reading personalised news aggregation on their Kindles? What do you think?
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