Sick. Dying. Dead. These are words that over the past months have become near synonymous with “newspaper” as we know it in the traditional sense. But did you know more people picked up a newspaper to read about the Super Bowl than watched it? Newspaper people want you to know that they’re not gone, and that many eyes are still on their gray newsprint. See this ad? It’s running in papers across the country — but the questions they have yet to answer is how to deal with lost advertising.
Craigslist
The biggest blow to hit the newspaper industry is Craig Newmark. The daily paper was once the best way to learn about jobs, items for sale and events. Craigslist changed that and improved upon it — bridging the gap between disparate newspaper listings and the hassle of eBay.
ROI
With a big chunk of classifieds relegated to the Web, papers were forced to rely on print ads and subscriptions. But in an era when content is increasingly available online and easier to obtain than via a newspaper, black thumbs needn’t smear ink any longer. Bottom line, subscriptions have ceased to grow — and as a result advertisers are taking their money elsewhere.
Did we mention you can’t click paper?
Locality Won’t Save You
There exists an idea that local papers will survive because local advertisers want to attract local consumers. Though this is true, the ad dollars may not be enough to sustain a full time local paper staff. Yelp, Zagat, Google and a plethora other sites provide reviews and click through.
Generational Differences
We shouldn’t discount the vast number of people who are still using newspapers with regularity. To be sure, there is a stronghold of Americans whose daily routine includes thumbing through the black and whites. But providing them service is an act of placation — if papers went away all together, people would be pissed. That said, the generations that follow will continue to read the news. And so it is the papers’ responsibility to migrate online, while simultaneously letting their traditional readers down gently.
You can see this happening everywhere, with staff trimming and dwindling coverage — the loss of a section here and there and generally less and less and less of everything.
Like a dying elephant, newspapers should know that their time is ending and head slowly to that place where papers die. And in their transition, they can be reborn online — in a space where their carbon footprint will be significantly smaller, their advertising more effective and their reporting time shorter. Smarter. Faster. Stronger. Move on guys, time’s up.
More: “Death of Print: Google Ends Paper Advertising Program”