Print revival? Afraid not

I have come across an article written a few weeks back by Eric Spitz, part owner of an American media company whose flagship is the Orange County Register based in Santa Ana, California.

I was intrigued by the headline – ‘US in the midst of a print revival’ – news to me, but worth a read.

As it turned out, the only evidence of this ‘revival’ was at the Register itself which, under Spitz and his business partner, Aaron Kushner, has undergone something of a renaissance. According to Spitz in the past 12 months the Register has hired 350 people, established 25 new sections, revamped its weekly community papers and launched a weekly set of magazines.

He states there has been a rise in both subscription and advertising revenue, although he doesn’t give exact figures, and on the basis of that makes two assertions. One I have sympathy with, the other I must reject.

Spitz says that media companies the world over made a huge mistake when, with the advent and growth of the internet in the early 1990s they put their content on line for all to see – for nothing.

“I don’t know many industries that can survive pricing their core product at zero,” he says. Quite right: Media companies were sucked in to the early internet hype and thought they could use their webpages as shop windows for their print editions. It didn’t work and when networks such as CNN and, in Australia the ABC, began to put all or most of their content online for nothing, newspapers felt they had to follow suit.

As a result while consumers are quite happy to buy everything from groceries to motor cars online they have become used to – and expect – to get their news for free. Good luck to Spitz and the Orange County Register if they feel they can turn back the tide. As examples of the successful use of paywalls Spitz quotes the Wall Street Journal (specialist news unavailable in the same content or quality elsewhere) and Groupa Reforma, which apparently is the largest media company in Mexico (hmm..). We shall see.

Maybe the bolting online news horse can be persuaded back into the stable, but Spitz’s other assertion, that newspapers will remain the prime location for advertising, is completely wide of the mark. He maintains that digital advertising does not work, that people almost never click on to online advertisements, while overlooking the massively popular websites that sell cars, homes, relationships and 101 other things.

I spoke to a real estate agent quite recently who said he now does all his business online. A survey taken last year shows that 80 per cent of prospective home buys go first to allhomes.com.au

It is the classifieds - the ‘rivers of gold’ - rather than display advertising, that are lost to newspapers, probably for good. It is a body blow to the industry that may not be fatal, but will certainly change it radically in the years to come.