Prompt's TechBlog
The death knell for the paid for paper?
21 November 2006
Posted by Annie - prompt
There once was a time when newspapers engaged in price wars to win readership. However, now there is the battle of the free paper which includes the London Lite, The londonpaper, City AM and The Metro in the UK capital alone.
As people are increasingly turning to the internet for their news, they are becoming less inclined to pay for their news and rightly so. Information should be free and newspapers given away at stations across the UK are enabling us to become a more informed nation. The Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for October showed that the free newspapers are gaining in readership but the majority of paid for newspapers are seeing less growth:
Overall the daily tabloids were down 2.98% month on month and 4.6% year on year. The national morning mid market, which includes Daily Express and The Daily Mail, were down 2.79% month on month and 0.7% year on year.
Overall, the national quality papers were down 1.25% month on month and 2.37% year on year. Within that group The Financial Times was the only paper to see growth and that was 1.79% month on month and 4.9% year on year.
The Metro saw a 0.89% increase month on month and 10.8% year on year, whereas the London Lite was up 3.67% month on month and thelondonpaper saw an increase of 15.41% month on month.
A BBC article on 4th September 2006 stated that an estimated 980,000 Londoners pick up a Metro in the morning. The scale of this readership, coupled with the new free afternoon papers, puts huge pressure on the paid-for newspapers and poses the question of whether they really can compete for much longer. The metro has a wide appeal which is hard for other newspapers to compete with. 78% of Metro readers are aged between 15 and 44 meaning that Metro is reaching out to a large section of Londoners.
In Europe publishers of free papers have started thrusting them through people's doors and into their homes. In Denmark, two free home-delivered newspapers have sprung up within two months. Rumours are also circulating that some Swedish publishers of daily freesheets will follow suit. If the experiment works in Denmark and Sweden, it could become a global trend. As there are 32.5 million copies of freesheets printed and distributed every day around the world (according to the World Association of Newspapers - WAN) this could send a further blow to paid for newspapers worldwide.
As people are increasingly turning to the internet for their news, they are becoming less inclined to pay for their news and rightly so. Information should be free and newspapers given away at stations across the UK are enabling us to become a more informed nation. The Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for October showed that the free newspapers are gaining in readership but the majority of paid for newspapers are seeing less growth:
Overall the daily tabloids were down 2.98% month on month and 4.6% year on year. The national morning mid market, which includes Daily Express and The Daily Mail, were down 2.79% month on month and 0.7% year on year.
Overall, the national quality papers were down 1.25% month on month and 2.37% year on year. Within that group The Financial Times was the only paper to see growth and that was 1.79% month on month and 4.9% year on year.
The Metro saw a 0.89% increase month on month and 10.8% year on year, whereas the London Lite was up 3.67% month on month and thelondonpaper saw an increase of 15.41% month on month.
A BBC article on 4th September 2006 stated that an estimated 980,000 Londoners pick up a Metro in the morning. The scale of this readership, coupled with the new free afternoon papers, puts huge pressure on the paid-for newspapers and poses the question of whether they really can compete for much longer. The metro has a wide appeal which is hard for other newspapers to compete with. 78% of Metro readers are aged between 15 and 44 meaning that Metro is reaching out to a large section of Londoners.
In Europe publishers of free papers have started thrusting them through people's doors and into their homes. In Denmark, two free home-delivered newspapers have sprung up within two months. Rumours are also circulating that some Swedish publishers of daily freesheets will follow suit. If the experiment works in Denmark and Sweden, it could become a global trend. As there are 32.5 million copies of freesheets printed and distributed every day around the world (according to the World Association of Newspapers - WAN) this could send a further blow to paid for newspapers worldwide.
# posted by Annie - prompt at 9:16 AM 
Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home