Reality Check: The Print-Online Performance Gap

Transcription

1 Reality Check: The Print-Online Performance Gap Iris Chyi, Ph.D. Author of Trial and Error: U.S. Newspapers' Digital Struggles toward Inferiority Associate Professor, School of Journalism The University of Texas at Austin Presentation at the WAN-IFRA Print World Conference, Berlin, Germany, October 2017

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3 By 1999, more than 2,600 U.S. newspapers were providing online services.

4 EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE THE NEXT THING:

5 Big-Screen e-readers May Help Save Newspapers Now the recession-ravaged newspaper and magazine industries are hoping for their own knight in shining digital armor, in the form of portable reading devices with big screens. (NYT, 2009)

6 October 1, 2012 Future of Mobile News The era of mobile digital technology has crossed a new threshold. Half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet... (Pew, 2012)

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11 20+ YEARS OF EXPERIMENT WITH DIGITAL

12 It s hard to find a technology that news organizations don t embrace. - Robert Picard (2009)

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14 During the recession, quickened declines in revenue confirmed the long-time assumption that print is dying.

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17 Others followed suit One-third of U.S. newspapers envision a time when they will stop publishing the print edition (Jenner, 2012).

18 Digital first, print last Stop focusing on print, Focus on the future and the future is not Print, Stop listening to Newspaper people. put the Digital people in charge of everything. - John Paton (former CEO of Digital First Media)

19 Newsroom Employment Tens of thousands of journalists lost their jobs. Mostly on the print side.

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21 Ironically The (supposedly dying) print edition outperforms the (supposedly promising) digital products by almost every standard. Advertising revenue Subscription revenue Readership Engagement

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23 Print accounts for 82% of ad revenue

24 Subscription Revenue

25 Paywalls since 2011 The New York Times is the most successful case: more than 1.5 million digital-only subscribers more than 1 million print subscribers Source: NYT 2020 report But how much are they paying?

26 NYT digital

27 Price hikes for print subscription 7-day print subscription (/year) 2008 Current The New York Times $530 $978 Los Angeles Times $104 $624 Dallas Morning News $204 $421 Average of top 25 U.S. papers $217 $492 Source: Alliance of Audited Media; Chyi & Tenenboim (2017)

28 The New York Times Digital subscription revenue: $83 million Print subscription revenue: $167 million Source: New York Times Reports Strong Quarter on Digital Revenue Growth (Q2 of 2017)

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30 Readership

31 Source: Scarborough, Q (Chyi & Tenenboim, 2016)

32 In-market Online and Print Reach, 2015 Print Reach Online Reach Average of 51 papers 28.8% 10.0% Among the 51 papers under study, without a single exception, print reach > online reach.

33 In-market Print-Only, Hybrid, and Online-Only Reach, 2015 Print-only Hybrid Online-only Average of 51 papers 23.3% 5.5% 4.5% 86% of those who read a newspaper do so in print. Among digital readers, 55% are still reading the print edition.

34 In-market Print and Online Reach over Time Print reach Online reach Average of 51 papers 42.4% 35.9% 28.8% 9.8% 10.7% 10.0% In-market online readership has shown little or no growth since More than a half of the newspapers saw a decline in online readership between 2011 and 2015.

35 Composition of combined readership

36 How about digital natives?

37 Engagement

38 The average visit to the top 25 newspaper sites lasted no more than 5 minutes. Source: State of the News Media, 2015

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40 Traffic through social media

41 Time spent on U.K. national newspapers Online: Less than 30 seconds a day Print: 40 minutes a day - Neil Thurman (2017)

42 Reality After more than 20 years, not a single newspaper has made it digitally.

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44 Reality It is hard not to conclude that there is no such thing as an all-digital future for the vast majority of newspapers.

45 Future Information surplus, dominance of Google and Facebook, and new technology like ad-blockers will only make things worse.

46 IS THERE ANY REASON TO BE OPTIMISTIC? Yes.

47 U.S. metro newspapers still reach one third (33.3%) of the local population. And 86% of these readers are still reading and paying $ a year for the dead-tree edition.

48 GOOD NEWS PRINT NEWSPAPERS DO NOT HAVE TO DIE.

49 BAD NEWS THEY MAY DIE AN UNNATURAL DEATH AS THE RESULT OF A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY.

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51 Response Thousands of Tweets Substantial media coverage worldwide More than 9,800 downloads of our study Digital enthusiasts responded strongly and emotionally

52 So pro-digital, so anti-print

53 I addressed these arguments in this report.

54 Publishers should acknowledge the reality Newspaper readers are by no means platform-agnostic. They prefer print. convey it to advertisers and the public

55 Publishers should drop the pro-digital, anti-print bias stop the metrics-driven, speed-driven, social media-driven practice

56 Journalism: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Aug. 7, 2017

57 Publishers should value audience research deliver quality content through preferred platforms

58 PLEASE DO SO BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

59 Study of 51 U.S. newspapers online and print readership Free download

60 Published in 2015 Available on Amazon.com

61 THANK