As the global news media shifts from pulp to digital, the newspaper industry is destined to fade into a golden, halcyon twilight. This is what some media outlets like The Huffington Post and many blogs have claimed would happen in the coming decades. But some optimists offer a glimpse into a future where paper and presses might just have a place after all.
Sri Lanka does not have any circulation or readership figures of its newspapers. Therefore, we cannot quote any credible figures. In most countries newspaper circulations are audited by an independent entity and the circulation figures disclosed.
That was the case in Sri Lanka as well, until the early 1970s when strict restrictions on foreign exchange ended the work of the Indian company that audited the Sri Lankan print media circulation. Since then attempts to re-introduce that system have been blocked by publishers.
According to Central Bank figures, Sri Lanka’s daily newspaper circulation has fallen in 2017, for the first time in nine years. The annual circulation of daily newspapers fell 3.2 percent to 399 million from a year earlier. However, continuing an 8-year trend of positive growth, the annual circulation of weekly newspapers rose 7.2 percent to 136 million from a year earlier.
Global trend
Ours is a trend going against the global flow, since newspaper circulation in many countries have fallen significantly, as consumers have switched to alternates such as websites, social media, news apps and digital television, which is at one’s fingertips and can provide information faster.
Does it mean the global trend would not apply to us? The Central Bank figures are based on the reports given by publishers themselves. They are not audited figures. Even if we believe the numbers are authentic, the global trend would eventually catch up with Sri Lanka too. It is only a matter of time.
New media
Any transformation moulded by revolutions often takes decades, and that is probably true for the news revolution as well.
The media, electronic and print, reporting the daily happenings in Sri Lanka and abroad rose in a competitive economy where winning the distribution battle led to a monopoly over the audience. The owners of TV and Radio invested heavily in their businesses keeping audiences entertained with news, sports, weather, etc.
However, the digital revolution, particularly, the social media has replaced the competitive economy with a sharing economy, in which distribution is horizontal rather than vertical. Audiences rather than owners control what they see, hear, and share.
If the TV represented a body blow to the newspaper industry, the digital revolution will prove to be the last nail in the coffin. With the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, vast amounts of information were suddenly free for the taking. Most newspapers, not wanting to be left behind times, started websites in which they gave away their most valuable commodity – content - for free.
However, many analysts believe this was a fatal mistake. One time loyal newspaper readers realized if they could access news online for free, there seemed little or no reason to subscribe for a newspaper.
What the future holds
The newspaper era, a few decades ago, was defined by competition. Each newspaper could reach only as far as its area of distribution. These battles drove editorial sensibilities. The watchword for the early journalists was ‘scoop.’ Whoever got the story first could get more readers. The fight for the scoop led to such practices as ‘keeping tabs’ on news creators.
Newspapers won’t die as long as there is quick and in-depth news being reported and a demand for information. No doubt there would be many other changes in the future. But how long can they sustain this pressure? What steps can the industry take to reduce the adverse impact? The industry must learn about the reality of the electronic market against which it has to compete.
There is no need to be desperate and resort to tightening the belt around their nineteenth-century waists, such as, reducing colour pages, changing inks, compacting sizes, dropping beats, or jettisoning staff. It would be futile to attempt to fit the1900 business model to today’s competitive market.
Newspapers must accept the fact that one day, their online version would be their primary version. The long-vaunted printed paper may still be kicking and alive, but it is already a secondary outlet and there is no going back.
Sri Lankan newspapers that would survive in the next three decades would be those who grasp, accept, and celebrate this concept.
Whether it is a future where printed news is absent entirely or a premium product is provided to a select few who wish to pay for it is anyone’s guess. The industry needs to remove its head from the rump of yesteryear’s unworkable business model and concentrate on devising an online model to engage and entice its readers and advertisers.
The industry can continue to die with its own problems, or wake up and smell the virtual coffee. No matter what, we cannot fight reality. Today, we are walking through an online information economy. It’s time that newspaper bosses wake up to this reality.