Digital revenues won't replace print - WAN-IFRA

The search for new business models, including paid-for online access for news, remains a pressing concern for the news publishing industry.

As search engines take the largest slice of internet advertising revenues, little is left for the content generators themselves. In a 182-billion dollar press advertising industry, digital revenues of newspapers accounted for less than six billion dollars last year and are forecast by PricewaterhouseCoopers to grow to no more than 8.4 billion dollars by 2013.

At the same time, print advertising is expected to decline. PwC predicts that by 2013, combined print and digital ad revenues will be less than print only ad revenues were in 2008.

"These PwC forecasts, similar to those made by Zenith Optimedia and others, demonstrate quite simply that at no time soon will digital advertising revenues come close to achieving the sort of revenues required, by many, to compensate for falling print revenue," said Timothy Balding, co-CEO of WAN-IFRA. "So that answer will have to be found elsewhere. Should these forecasts come close to being true, new business models will have to be invented."

"If newspaper companies wish to maintain their strong content leadership, someone is going to have to pay. It looks like we have to solve the digital payment issue ­ and soon," he said.

Yet despite the problems of falling advertising revenues, forecasts of even further declines, and pressure from new competitors, the global newspaper industry is far from facing an "apocalypse," Balding said.

"Despite the endless predictions about the death of newspapers, they actually continue to grow, at least on a global scale," said Timothy Balding, co-CEO of WAN-IFRA.

The WAN-IFRA survey showed that newspaper circulation grew, on a global scale, by 1.3 percent in 2008, the last full year for which data exists, and almost 9 percent over five years.

"You might say that this growth is taking place in the developing markets and masks a continued downward trend in the developed world. And to a degree this is true, but it is not the whole story, as newspaper companies in the 'old' markets have embraced digital platforms and new forms of print publishing and, in doing so, have actually grown their audience reach and revenues, even while their print circulations have come under pressure," Balding said.

The data shows consistent newspaper growth in Africa, Asia and South America, and a long-term slowdown in the US and European markets.

"But even here, a sense of proportion demands that we deny the idea that the apocalypse is upon us," said Balding. "A circulation drop in Europe, for example, is less than 3 percent over five years. Over five years, according to our survey, newspaper circulation increased in 100 of the 182 nations for which we have reliable data."

The survey, presented to more than 900 publishers, chief editors, managing directors and other senior newspaper executives attending the congress and forum, was drawn primarily from data from WAN-IFRA's World Press Trends and World Digital Media Trends surveys, and from data provided by Zenith Optimedia and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Highlights from the presentation:

• Globally, 1.9 billion people choose to read a newspaper every day, or 34 percent of the world population, while 24 percent use the internet.

• The biggest newspaper market in the world is India, with 107 million daily sales. India, China and Japan account for more than 60 percent of the world's newspaper sales, with the USA taking 14 percent. "While it is true that in some regions circulations are not a boom sector, newspapers continue to be a global mass media to be reckoned with, achieving reach of over 34 percent," said Balding.

• In terms of sales per 1,000 adult population, Japan leads the world with 612, followed by Norway with 576, and Finland with 482. In terms of reach, 91 percent of Japanese continue to read a newspaper daily ­ a remarkable figure in such a technologically advanced and wired society.

• Advertising revenues fell an estimated 20 percent in North America, 19 percent in eastern Europe, 16 percent in western Europe, and 11 percent in the Asia Pacific in 2009, according to PwC.

• The US market has been hardest hit, with advertising revenues in the third quarter of 2009 falling nearly 29 percent in print and nearly 17 percent on digital platforms over the same quarter in 200!. But revenue declines mirror declines in other industries. "While we have systemic challenges, while we transition from a print only model to new forms of publishing over time and that we can exercise control over, there still remains outside forces ­ namely the economy ­ that we have little control over," said Balding.

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