Thread: Newspaper Suffer Biggest Collapse in Sales in a Generation

Clutching at Straws
...and resort to increasingly more desperate means to attract readers, such as proposterous trolling headlines, ruthless invasion of people's privacy with no regard for the integrity of ongoing criminal investigations, and obsessively focussing on the inane vapid lives of disposable attention-seeking talentless non-entities (otherwise known as "celebrities").

The End is Nigh

British newspapers are haemorrhaging readers and influence, and next Sunday we will see just how much this process has accelerated. That day's newspapers will — I'm sure — all be making some kind of pitch to orphaned News of the World readers. When Today closed, there was a similar scramble ("Welcome to your place in The Sun," screamed its main rival), but this time they could be in for a shock. American experience suggests that when newspapers close, their readers just disappear — they liked their former paper, saw it as an old friend and didn't feel compelled to find a new one. Preliminary research, picked up by my old colleague Will Heaven, suggests that two-thirds of the News of the World's readers just won't pick up another newspaper again. And why? Because there's not another newspaper like it.

There's been a lot of sneering in the last few days, as if News of the World readers were all lumpens who buy it because they struggle with long words. In fact, my former newspaper had more ABC1 readers (2.93 million) than the Sunday Times or Sunday Telegraph (Peter Preston explains it all here). Or, put another way, for every person watching Newsnight there were 16 people reading the News of the World. This isn't to belittle Newsnight, which is a great programme for a specific audience. But the News of the World did inform and entertain seven million people of a Sunday. No other Sunday newspaper, anywhere in the world, had so many buyers. On the Fleet St grapevine, it's said that other Sunday papers believe that picking up News of the World readers will, at best, delay their decline by 6-9 months.

Many CoffeeHousers will say this serves the paper right, and I agree that the mortal blow was self-inflicted. But I suspect we're about to witness the biggest single dip in British newspaper industry sales — and that the Screws will be the first in a series of casualties.

Out of Control

UK newspapers have suffered the most dramatic circulation declines of any country outside America since 2007, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
A detailed study published by the OECD paints a bleak picture of the industry.
...

The report's authors claimed that newspapersare burdened with fixed costs, which are dominated by non-editorial activities including promotion and distribution. That makes them particularly vulnerable to a downturn and "less agile" when trying to adapt to changes ushered in by the internet.
...

The report concludes that "no business and/or revenue sharing models have been found to finance in-depth independent news production. This raises questions as to the supply of high-quality journalism in the longer term."

UK and US see heaviest newspaper circulation declines | Media | guardian.co.uk
(Even the almighty and blessed BBC frequently recycles and repackages 6-year old news items as new news).

Mass Redundancies of Journalists

Newspaper sales in Britain are on a downward slope and have been for many years. Now, after this Sunday past, 10 July 2011, the figures will, most likely, fall off a cliff.

(and hopefully many journalists too...)
Phone hacking: Britain's ever downward circulation figures and the suicide of a salacious tabloid - International Business Times
wages have been drifting downwards for years, why not offshore it to India!?
...citizens learn that they can make a news site themselves without having to beg for the attention of a snotty snooper.

Sleeping in Shop Doorways

Support 'solid' as BBC journalists strike against compulsory job losses
Thousands of BBC journalists have held a 24-hour strike against compulsory redundancies, and the NUJ is accusing the corporation's top management of wilfully avoiding talks which could have averted the stoppage. A further strike is due on July 29.

Programmes were cancelled across the BBC networks, including the prestigious Newsnight and Any Questions, with many guests and interviewees refusing to participate in recordings. Regular output was severely disrupted by the strike on July 15 and one radio service even re-broadcast news bulletins from the previous day.

Radio 4's flagship World at One, PM and The World Tonight were off air and the Today programme was broadcast an hour late, while the BBC1 Breakfast show was replaced by a feed from the BBC News channel. Most of the BBC's best-known radio and television journalists joined their colleagues on strike. "Management has had to draft in some ambitious, but uncomfortable, third division replacements who foolishly believe that undermining their colleagues will help their careers," commented one striker.

BBC journalists reported: 'Members on strike across the UK from Ipswich to Derry and down to Jersey. Massive support in Scotland and Wales. Solidarity from Unison, Unite and PCS in Cambridge; CWU, Unison and PCS in Coventry, and elsewhere."

NUJ - Support 'solid' as BBC journalists strike against compulsory job losses

Solid like a blob of poo on a journotroll's collar.

Mass suicide

New research from Enders Analysis concludes that the closure of the News of the World will see Britain’s Sunday national press circulation decline by nearly 1.8 million copies per week. The News of the World’s circulation was 2.66 million earlier this year, so we’re talking about two thirds of NoW readers who will never read a Sunday newspaper again.
The research, which is not available online, notes:
In our view the single largest impact of the the closure of NoW on the national Sunday newspaper market is that a substantial proportion of its loyal readership will fail to pick up an alternative newspaper, and simply fall out of the market entirely. We anticipate a decline of 1.8 million copies per week across all titles, an ‘overnight’ decline of 19% in the Sunday sector. This would take total Sunday circulation down to about half the circulation of 14.3 million copies sold per issue in 2000, and less than a third of the circulation of 24.6 million in 1970.

Two thirds of News of the World readers will never pick up a Sunday newspaper again – Telegraph Blogs

Every headline that's not about inconsequential "celebs" or about the media reporting about itself, seems to be crying wolf about some poorly researched "crisis" (everything's a 'cking "crisis" these days) far, far, away... there's an "end of days" feel about public life in the UK, like the whole society is creaking under the weight of so much sh!t, and just waiting to collapse.

Seems like, for the British "news"! media, the writing's on the wall.

Good. It deserves to die a death. A long expensive death.

It's 2011, newsprint is redundant, unnecessary, and has, fundamentally been hoist on its own petard.

Good riddance.

JMO Haven't bought a paper in years.

I used to buy the Sunday Times ,but they keep putting the price up and making it thinner, even as the readership fell- It's now £2.20.
Also, like the daily Times they have got more PC liberal writers, even poofs.
if the owners thought scum like me would continue to pay their journalists wages, only to be lectured on the 'merits' of
multiculturalism etc over my cornflakes then they figured wrong .