Yesterday we heard that the LA Times will be cutting 250 jobs, reducing pages and eliminating some sections primarily because ad sales are down. This seems to beg the (oft asked) question “Is print dead?” This is a question we as marketers really should be paying serious attention to.
As a writer, I hate to see this, since many of those losing jobs will be writers. As an avid reader, I’m torn. I check out the LAT online from time to time. While I like the paper, I have to admit I haven’t bought ANY newspaper in some time. It’s so much easier just to enter the URL and search the headlines for the stories that interest me.
Even so, it’s sad to think about the possibility of a paper shelving its entire print operation…which is why this recent news about the WSJ is so encouraging: online hits AND print subscriptions are both showing healthy growth.
Add that in with the announcement of the development of MagCloud, an HP-partner print-on-demand project that lets people create complete magazines just by uploading PDF files, and then lets the publisher or individuals order a copy right from the site. No overstock to deal with. No guessing how many mags you’ll need to oder for this print run. And your archives of back issues stay open forever.
This is a much more economical model that considerably cuts back on waste. It may not be the “future of the biz,” but it’s a step that shows that there are other alternatives to the traditional model that might be worth exploring.
(of course, it also gives everyone the power to publish their own magazine with almost the same ease as publishing a blog…but that’s a topic for another day).
So, is print dead? I don’t think so. I think the full-page ad will be with us for a long time to come. The medium, however, is going to be going through some serious growing pains as it works out exactly how it’s going co-exist with the digital media.
The one thing it has on its side is stability. Digital media is in a constant state of flux, with new avenues of expression opening every day. But people know what to expect when they open a magazine.
I will say the future looks less certain for newspapers than for magazines. Newspapers are a medium filled with tons of information on many, many topics. They are generalists. Magazines, by contrast, are specialists. The delve in some depth into a particular topic.
More and more people are turning to online media for their general information…even if it’s the website of that same newspaper. They can find what they’re looking for without having to wade through all the stuff they aren’t interested in.
It will interesting to see what’s left after the shakeup, which will probably continue for the next 10 or 15 years. In the meantime, we need to be paying attention and thinking hard about how we’re going to adapt.
This is a very timely post. I was recently listening to a BBC interview; their guest was Arianna Huffington. She was speaking about the “Huffington Post”, her latest project. She says that far from being dead, print wil be supplemented by internet resources. I hope that we don’t lose the print medium anytime soon, as I still use print as my primary reading source. I may be showing my age, but I still enjoy holding a book, magazine, or paper in my hand, and I enjoy the creative ads flowing through the magazines. Can it be done more efficiently via the internet? Most likely. In the marketing world more than any other, efficiency can’t trump desire. That being said, as the younger generations keep becoming more wired, I do see a possible bleak future for print on the horizon.
Kelly
July 6th, 2008