Do websites hurt print circulations? Websites are often singled out as one of the main culprits for falling print circulations. Simply put, the argument is why would readers bother to buy a newspaper if they can get the same publication for free over the net?
It’s not a new debate, yet it persists. It’s the question at the back of every newspaper editor’s mind when faced with declining numbers. Print circulations around the world are showing signs of trouble – showing either a decline or not delivering the kind of growth expected.
A World Association of Newspapers survey found last year that newspaper circulation worldwide fell 0,35% in 2002, the first decline in five years. Yet the same survey – covering 70 countries, including South Africa – also reported that internet consumption and advertising levels were “much stronger than anticipated”. The survey also found that 79% of newspapers have their own websites, compared with around 52% in 1998.
The reason for the decline, concluded the survey, is a downturn in the global economy. But many are asking if the drop has anything to do with the arrival of the internet as a major news publisher? No significant research has been conducted into this phenomenon in South Africa, so everyone has been guessing. People are still guessing.
One would guess that weekend papers are better off than weekday dailies, which compete with website publications more directly. Weekdays, when people access the net from work, are big traffic days for online publications. Also, most online news publications tend to focus on daily, breaking news. On weekends, on the other hand, internet readerships drop significantly. It would appear that papers published on the weekends face much less competition from online publications.
South Africa’s largest circulating newspaper comes out on a Sunday – a low internet readership day. Is that more than coincidence? Also, does it mean anything to the debate that two of South Africa big selling daily papers, The Citizen and Sowetan, don’t have websites?
One thing that is clear is that publications with a younger demographic are more likely to feel the pinch from online. After researching the issue, Time magazine found that its younger readers were more inclined to read online and didn’t bother to subscribe anymore. Time‘s answer to this problem was to tie its website access to the print publication’s subscription.
So what’s to be done? The answers are not apparent in the absence of any major research.
But online publications are here to stay. Among other things, websites generate enormous local and international prestige and readership numbers for publishing companies. International trends indicate they can be a strong source of profit for publishing companies, given various new pay-for-content schemes being mooted and the recovering online advertising industry.
Many argue that, in fact, websites increase readerships of their newspapers by generating online subscriptions and by acting as a promotional vehicle, ensuring the reader consumes the publication’s brand on multiple platforms.
Professor Guy Berger, head of journalism at Rhodes University, says it’s a case of companies taking a holistic perspective and realising that “two horses are better than one”. It is a matter of co-ordinating the two products so they complement each other and don’t compete.
A reader should want to read a publication’s online version to get something different from the print version, and it should be clear to the reader that there’s a different value proposition behind two different experiences.
This means having unique, web-exclusive content in ways that exploits the defining features of the internet medium – interactivity, searchability, dynamism and immediacy. If a website is merely a copy of its print publication, then what’s the point of buying the newspaper in the first place?
Matthew Buckland is editor of the Mail & Guardian Online @ www.mg.co.za