The production and distribution costs of newspapers is and has been very expensive when compared to digital cost and distribution of information today. The only reason newspapers have survived for so long was because local newspapers were a geographical monopoly that could demand a subscription fee in addition to receiving advertising funding. However, there are no monopolies for long on the Internet.
Now that the Internet has created Craig's List as the rebirth of the local newspaper "want ads" and social media (blogs, networks, RSS, Twitter, etc) as the places to get the news and opinions you want to read, most newspapers across the world are dead or are counting the days on their death bed.
Of course, a few quality and expensive newspapers and periodicals, like The Wall Street Journal and THE NEW YORKER, will survive in printed form delivered to your house, office or Post Office box. And advertising-driven local newspapers will still appear at low-or-no cost on a weekly basis to encourage consumers to get out and buy something at their local shopping centers.
But the future of news distribution will be digital via the Internet and mass-customized to fit the reading/viewing desires of individual consumers. This newsworthy content will be read on the computer screen, book/newspaper replacements like Amazon's Kindle, or printed out on demand by the reader on their home or office Kodak or HP printer.
A Life Line for Dying Newspapers?
Here in Ann Arbor, MI, USA, the local newspaper is ending daily printing and distribution by moving to a combination of a daily online presence (www.AnnArbor.com) and advertising-driven paper distribution on Thursdays and Sundays. The biggest challenge is how to monetize their projected high employee overhead cost with only a semi-weekly paper publication that is advertising financed...since they no longer have a local news monopoly. A number of Free online local blogs are continuing to emerge, like www.AnnArborChronicle.com and www.BigHouseBlog.com, and are rapidly filling the gap of daily news distribution.
However, on the national scene, there is plenty of other information out there that has chosen to run in the opposite direction of 'Free' as best selling author Malcolm Gladwell writes in the July 13, 2009 edition of THE NEW YORKER. "But The Wall Street Journal has found that more than a million subscribers are quite happy to pay for the privilege of reading online. Broadcast television--the original practitioner of Free--is struggling. But premium cable, with its stiff monthly charges for specialty content, is doing just fine."
Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success
