FT concentrates on Digital

jmcc

The Financial Times is going to give primacy to its digital platform over print. RTE has an interesting article on the move:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0122/363891-financial-times-digital/

While PPV has been an abject failure for the Irish Times and the Sunday Business Post has apparently around one thousand subscriptions, the most intersting quote in the article above is this:

"That approach has helped boost digital subscriptions, which exceeded print circulation for the first time in the first half of 2012."

Could Digital be the way forward for newspapers and how would newspapers that concentrate on waffle and Op-Eds fare in a digital future?

Regards...jmcc

IRE60

I am of the opinion that the tablet (and the phablet - large screen phones) will be the (partial) savior of many news organisations (FKA Newspapers). I'm currently pulling together some stats on tablets, their fairly meteoric growth and some of the numbers (worldwide) are very impressive - especially the increase in newspaper page views etc.

I'll throw up a few numbers later in the week hopefully.

The FT make more money from Digital than they do from print, Dig overtook it last year. The see, and have seen for many years where the market is going.

They are lucky in that they have a very niche product one that people are prepared to pay for. I cant seem to see the same "must have" for say the evening herald digital edition.

jmcc

IRE60 wrote: »

I am of the opinion that the tablet (and the phablet - large screen phones) will be the (partial) savior of many news organisations (FKA Newspapers). I'm currently pulling together some stats on tablets, their fairly meteoric growth and some of the numbers (worldwide) are very impressive - especially the increase in newspaper page views etc.

I've noticed a similar change in user agents on HosterStats. Smartphones and tablet user agents have increased in the last few years.

They are lucky in that they have a very niche product one that people are prepared to pay for. I cant seem to see the same "must have" for say the evening herald digital edition.

The problem for mainstream newspapers is that they have very little specialist content and the unique content is typically Op-Ed waffle. On the internet, everyone has an opinion so the columnists (Waters et al) do not have quite the unquestioning readership on the web.

The irony of this, especially when it comes to the Irish Times and some other newspapers is that instead of competing directly with web publications, they ended up, due to web-ignorant management, competing with magazines instead of creating a web marketable product.

Regards...jmcc

JTMan

Trinity Mirror have just made a very similar announcement as the FT.

Letting staff go, concentrating on digital and local content.