His latest post for his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog is the first of a two-part series on the future of the newspaper. In it, Alan Mutter examines the consumer demand for the print publication.
He crunches numbers conservatively and concludes that the demand will decline, but not precipitously. By 2025, there will be a drop of 27 per cent and by 2040 a nearly 50-per-cent decline.
That still leaves newspapers in a reasonable condition as a consumer good. What isn't clear is whether advertising will depart in a disproportionate way and migrate to the related digital platform of a newsroom in a helpful way.
Another big issue: "The question for publishers is how long their audience will be large enough to justify the enormous expense of owning and operating the massive and inefficient infrastructure they use to manufacture and distribute newspapers."
The next instalment will deal with that issue.
He crunches numbers conservatively and concludes that the demand will decline, but not precipitously. By 2025, there will be a drop of 27 per cent and by 2040 a nearly 50-per-cent decline.
That still leaves newspapers in a reasonable condition as a consumer good. What isn't clear is whether advertising will depart in a disproportionate way and migrate to the related digital platform of a newsroom in a helpful way.
Another big issue: "The question for publishers is how long their audience will be large enough to justify the enormous expense of owning and operating the massive and inefficient infrastructure they use to manufacture and distribute newspapers."
The next instalment will deal with that issue.
