Is print dead?
Follow @mediaukdiscussOn Quora, I responded to this question:
How long until paper stops being main stream media?
In UK we saw New Media Age, a popular industry title, going digital only this week. Is this a trend that will grow because of its cost effectiveness and will eventually decree the end of paper as we know it.
...with this answer:
New Media Age was a publication about digital media. Particularly for this industry, the best and most cost-effective way of reaching audiences with news about digital media is to use digital media, and not pieces of dead trees.
That said, sales and readership of more mass-market newspapers and magazines, while slowly trending downwards, are not, by any stretch, making it pointless to produce. The Sun, for example, has over 7.7 million readers, and it will continue being cost-effective to publish newspapers for many years to come.
http://www.mediauk.com/newspapers/13707/the-sun/readership-figures
The Guardian, a newspaper who has seen modest increases in its readership recently, have announced research which says many of their readers consume their print product in the evening, which points to the printed product being reinvented for analysis, rather than breaking news. By re-evaluating print, it should continue to remain strong for an outlet for mass-media.
... have I responded correctly? What would you have said? Am I talking rubbish?
It’s easy to say that print is dead, but all too many commentators forget that, in wider British society, most people don’t own iPads (or other brands of tablet), or Kindles, or other devices on which they can read a newspaper when it suits them.
The internet and rolling news channels make newspapers obsolete as a place to find out about big news stories and sports results, though, and so the point about analysis is probably correct. There’s a lot more news in a newspaper than the front page, though, including items such as obituaries.
Ultimately tabloids could perhaps have a longer shelf life than broadsheets in print form. This is because, firstly, they often deal in ‘exclusives’ and showbiz stories that aren’t covered so well elsewhere, meaning they’re still the prime place to find out about such ‘news’. Secondly, and this part is the generalisation, I would suspect that tabloid readers are going to be slower in their take-up and dis-interested in buying an electronic newspaper, based on the demographics that such media attract.
Print therefore has a long life, unless one paper makes the bold move and all follow suit, but I find that unlikely and it’d surely be to the detriment of readership.
There have been so many titles that have folded in the past year. Regionals are disappearing weekly, circulations are going down. We are actually finding it hard to find new print titles to advertise in!
http://www.whomovedmycheese.com/?gclid=CM2syfa-mqsCFYMKfAodtyYaOA
Who moved my cheese? There are still the same number of readers out there. you need to look at new ways of getting to them.
All depends on the content it is offering. Good content gets good press. Crap or crap disguised as content is quickly found out. Guardian might be right. Rolling news makes newspapers think about the story and analysis more not the headline. Still think in 5 years time more press titles will have folded.