Eat Sleep Publish  provides a chart from Edward Roussel of the Daily Telegraph that essentially says taking print production out of the mix of expenses ---- that is, shifting to digital --- would increase profits.
It's a clever chart, but it misses a fundamental point or two: Many people buy a paper because it's paper.  Revenues will fall precipitously because advertisers will not pay the same rates to reach people online as they would in print. 
Yes, expenses are reduced if you can eliminate newsprint, a plant, cartage and sales incentives to market a print edition. But so does revenue fall.
Were it only that easy.

 


Comments

11/25/2008 16:22

I respectfully disagree; the chart doesn't include anything about revenues!

You're absolutely right that print ads are higher margin than online ads (and will probably remain that way), but just because revenue drops doesn't mean you won't make a profit.

If revenue drops by 30% and costs drop by 65%, that's a relative increase in revenue.

Also, remember that online ad space is virtually unlimited, whereas print ad space is very limited, and incurs an extra cost for all extra space.

Also also, a story, once published online, can generate revenue for as long as people are reading it, instead of having only one sale point.

10 million ads making one dollar is better than 50 ads making 50 dollars ;)

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