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Developing Print and
Digital Media Together
Paris, 27 February,
2006--The mantra from digital publishing advocates at the World
Newspaper Advertising Conference & Expo was that newspaper
companies must rapidly move their business on-line or risk getting
left behind.
Ironically, those same
advocates provided one of the strongest arguments for staying
in, and developing, the print business -- newspapers generate
much more revenue per reader than on-line media, and will continue
to do so for some time to come.
On-line advertising
revenues are rising dramatically -- they were more than 17 billion
dollars in the United States last year, with 4 billion going to
newspapers, according to Vin Crosbie of Borrell Associates. But
on-line media produce 20 to 100 times less revenue per reader
than newspapers do, he said. To put it another way, for every
print reader lost, newspapers have to replace them with between
20 and 100 website readers to gain the same revenue.
"We need to make
the revenues we earn from on-line readers equal or more than what
we earned from the people who no longer read us in print,"
said Mr Crosbie, who conceded this was an enormous task.
Other speakers echoed
Mr Crosbie, particularly when it comes to classified advertising.
Jim Chisholm, Strategy Advisor to the World Association of Newspapers,
said the movement of classified advertising from print to on-line
was accelerating rapidly worldwide.
"We are seeing
fantastic growth in on-line classifieds, but it is not enough
to make up for the money lost from print classifieds," said
Mr Chisholm, who directs the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper
project, which has been tracking the migration of classified advertisements
from print to on-line for the past three years.
While there is no doubt
that newspapers must develop their on-line operations -- and much
of the conference was devoted to these strategies, and how successful
companies implement them -- others see value in building the print
franchise.
Take the Arizona Republic,
a Gannett publication which is following an "audience aggregation"
strategy that calls for aggressive expansion of both print and
on-line products.
The flagship newspaper
is complemented with new supplements, niche and community newspapers
and magazines, both free and paid, as well as an array of on-line
products, to reach many different segments of the market.
"This is a powerful
approach to building total audience, building audience difficult
to reach with our core newspaper, but it does not diminish our
commitment to producing the finest daily newspapers possible,
nor does it diminish our efforts to continue to actively support
and grow readership of the daily product," said Publisher
John Zidich.
Newspaper executives
must also guard against overreacting to anecdotal information
that tends to exaggerate the impact of the internet on newspaper
operations, said Gavin O'Reilly, Chief Operating Officer of Dublin-based
Independent News & Media and President of the World Association
of Newspapers.
Mr O'Reilly urged participants
-- a record 480 from 75 countries -- to check the facts and reject
the myths that are fuelling belief that the internet is threatening
newspapers.
"There is not
a shred of empirical evidence, here or in the USA, or in Scandinavia,
or the Far East, to confirm that the internet per se is damaging
newspaper circulations," he said. "Indeed, a recent
study by WAN demonstrated that those newspapers with strong web
activities were actually the ones that were showing circulation
growth."
As audience and effectiveness
research becomes more sophisticated, there is a growing understanding
that the attributes and unique qualities of print cannot be duplicated
by other media. Delegates at the conference were treated to several
presentations that demonstrated that advertisers should look beyond
just circulation and readership for the value that newspapers
provide.
For example, studies
in France show that newspapers are far superior to other media
in terms of the quality of their audience, the loyalty they demonstrate
to the paper, their acceptance of advertising messages and other
attributes.
"This is not a
French exception. It is the same elsewhere for print media,"
said Luciano Bosio, Managing Director for Marketing, Research
and Strategy for Publiprint.
Summaries of all presentations
at the conference, held last week in Paris and organized by WAN,
can be found at http://www.wan-press.org/paris2006/
Upcoming: The 59th
World Newspaper Congress, 13th World Editors Forum and Info Services
Expo 2006, the global meetings of the world's press, to be held
in Moscow, Russia from 4 to 7 June next. Full details at http://www.moscow2006.com
The Paris-based WAN,
the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents
18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 73 national newspaper
associations, newspapers and newspaper executives in 102 countries,
11 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.
For more information
contact:
Inquiries
to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy
St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33
1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr
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