Readership Market Publishing International 19
NEWSPAPER READERSHIP
Newspapers are alive!
Newspaper sales have seen a small but steady decline in many mature markets.
But in terms of readership newspapers are a multimedia growth business.
Sales of paid-for
The World Association of Newspapers esti- newspaper readership, helped stem the read-
mates that 1.6 billion people read a newspa- ership decline in the United States by about newspapers increased
per somewhere in the world each day. And five percentage points in 2006, according to
that is just paid-for paper copies. With the the Pew Research Center. nearly 2 percent world-
advent of free newspapers, and the massive Scarborough research confirms this: News-
growth of newspaper readership on the in- paper online sites are actually increasing the wide last year, to 550
ternet, the number of people reading daily total publisher’s audience by an incremental
newspapers is growing substantially. 2 percent to 15 percent. Their study, based on million copies, and
So why are newspapers so often character- the top 25 US markets, shows how publish-
ized as dead or dying? While it is true that ers are positively using the internet to build increased more than
newspaper sales have seen a small but steady a greater audience in addition to print − with
decline in many mature markets, in terms of the New York Times, for example, showing 4 percent when free
readership it is clear that newspapers are a a 12 percent uplift, the Los Angeles Times a
multimedia growth business. 5 percent uplift, and the Washington Post a papers are added.
It is hard to pick up a newspaper or magazine 7 percent uplift.
today, or read a blog, without seeing nega- At the same time, there has also been progres- digital measurements. Several media research
tive news about the newspaper industry itself. sive and proactive innovation in newspaper firms have created combined measurements
But there is a disconnect between the nega- formats and sizes, brand extensions, more to show the advertising community and
tive press about the newspaper industry, and aggressive marketing − particularly to the media investors the true marketplace reach
the actual facts about newspapers. Contrary youth − and investment in new technology. for newspapers, with circulation, readership
to conventional wisdom and preconceptions, All have contributed to the upward reader- and traffic numbers for print and digital
newspapers are a growing, innovative and ship trend and prove the complementary combined. But, until now, no international
vital medium with a bright future. nature of print and online. group has embarked on creating a standard-
ized, combined print and digital currency,
which may be a useful measurement to ad
agencies planning billions of dollars of adver-
tising campaigns across media each year.
The mission statement of the Task Force
says: “Newspapers are in the business of col-
lecting, aggregating and distributing news,
information and entertainment, and they are
moving to doing that in a platform-agnostic
In terms of readership, newspapers are con- And yet, when it comes to measuring news- manner. Our role is to capture the audience
tinuing to deliver audiences and are resisting paper audience, we are still most often count- and activity − quantitatively and qualitatively
fragmentation better than other media. Sales ing audited print sales. There is a need in − to any of those platforms, and to enable our
of paid-for newspapers increased nearly 2 the newspaper and advertising industries to stakeholders to provide accountability for
percent worldwide last year, to 550 million adopt a new metric that combines print and their portfolio.”
copies, and increased more than 4 percent online to provide advertisers with a more Print and online together is where the future
when free papers are added. The number of complete picture of their audience than print readership trend of the industry lies.
paid-for newspaper titles grew to more than circulation alone. Larry Kilman
11,000 for the first time in history. Free The World Association of Newspapers and
newspaper circulation more than doubled some of the most prominent names in the
over five years, to 40.8 million copies a day. global print and digital research community
In countries where newspaper sales have been have organized a coalition in order to work In those countries where newspaper sales
declining, the growth in online newspapers on that. The Media Measurement Integra- have been declining, the growth in online
offsets the negative trend. As one example, tion Task Force is exploring the possibility newspapers offsets the negative trend.
online newspapers, when combined with of global standards for combined print and
AAU07_2722_Inhalt.indd 19U07_2722_Inhalt.indd 19 008.11.2007 13:50:10 Uhr8.11.2007 13:50:10 Uhr
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