Electronic Publishing And The Internet Reformation

Mike King of The Motley Fool tells us of "more large falls in newspaper circulation." This is an ongoing story but one that King flips around in a recent article on the subject. "Offsetting the decline, digital sales of newspapers appear to be rising," he writes, citing the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) release.

For King this is a bright spot, presumably because he thinks mainstream US newspapers are worth saving. I'm not so sure, nor am I sure that what King sees constitutes a significant reversal. Let's return to King's analysis. He writes:

Metropolitan daily newspapers posted an average 6.5% fall in the September quarter, while national newspaper circulation fell 5.5%. That's the 27th consecutive quarter of falling circulation.

Part of the decline in newspaper sales is the result of the publishing companies cutting uneconomic distribution regions, as the companies look to cut costs and focus on profitable areas of the business. Australia's Fairfax Publishing plans to introduce subscriptions for its metro online and app versions of its mastheads next year.

"The latest ABC figures clearly show that people in Australia will pay for quality journalism in both print and digital formats," The Newspaper Works CEO, Tony Hale, said. He added, "The multi-platform publishing strategies being pursued by the major newspaper publishers have produced a very promising picture of newspaper circulations."

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