Page 19 - Newspaper of the Future Case Study

Free News

At the moment the reality of the "old vs. new media" clash is not a cleanly
sliced dichotomy. Rather it has been a messy collision of disparate worlds
where the pace of innovation is surging forward and opening new avenues for
multiple contributors to engage in dialogues with multiple audiences in a
timeframe which is instantaneous and which has a tendency to engender
soundbite contributions. The consequence is a drive to increased concentration
ratios in the newspaper world as efficiency and effectiveness are sought
through mergers and acquisitions based on developing wider market metrics.
The acquisition of the i newsaper will give JP the scale it needs to sell national
advertising as well as to grow its digital audience.

However, there are several reasons for the downward spiral of local news
companies. One, though, is very apparent but seldom acknowledged by
publishers: Most news publishers are providing lower quality products year
after year and charging more for them. The question associated with this is
simply - Why?

Free News

News is not free, someone has always had to pay for it either the customers or
the advertisers. Allied to this is content for which the reader pays or goes
away.

For newspapers:

inventory = available pages

and the more inventory then the more adverts. In the newspaper industry it is
generally accepted that only 50% of adverts in newspapers will be effective.
The problem is which 50%?

The potential of the Internet offer is that of infinite inventory and 24 hour
rolling news.

Moreover, web advertisers know which ads are seen as digital media gives
greater information on who read it, how long they looked at it, where they