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The decline continues

IRE60

Via the Campaign site - report on the worsening state of print. (Cant find it on Neilsons' site). Some of the budget cuts are savage:

Newspaper revenues fall amid talk of joint ad sales

The national newspaper advertising slump has worsened since the Brexit vote, with revenues crashing 18% year on year in August, making it the worst-performing month of the year so far.

Print ad sales dived 14%, or £95m, in the first eight months of the year to £575m from £670m in the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen.

Newspapers got a brief respite around the Brexit referendum, when ad sales fell only 4.5% in June and 11% in July. Every other month this year has seen a fall of at least 14%.

The newspaper print ad market fell 13% in 2015 and 9% in 2014.

A number of high-profile brands abruptly slashed their print ad expenditure in favour of Facebook and other digital channels.

Tesco cut spend by 85% year on year in the first eight months of 2016 to £1.8m, O2 reduced its outlay on print ads by 45% to £4m and Marks & Spencer dropped its spend by 28% to £7m.

Worsening revenues will add to pressure on newspaper owners to consider pooling their ad sales in a single sales house in order to gain scale in their negotiations with media agencies, improve efficiency and cut costs.

News UK, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group, Guardian Media Group, DMGT and Northern & Shell have been in talks since at least May, when Campaign first reported that discussions had begun.

Steve Booth, chairman of MC&C and co-founder of BLM, has been leading the initiative, dubbed Project Juno.

Newspapers are understood to have commissioned Enders Analysis and lawyers to report on how a joint ad sales house might work and the likely obstacles emerging from a Competition

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Idbatterim

Never once saw an article on the outrageous welfare state pre covid, giving away free prime location a energy rated homes ... while many woukdnt qualify for them and will do massuve commutes from houseshares etc ..

J_M_G

Yeah I think I'm actually gonna nope out from this thread and site after having my post above partially deleted by that overzealous mod. Being edited like that has left a sour taste in my mouth, especially when I was on-topic and making sincere effort to be perfectly civil. Merely replying to a previous poster who pushed his own liberal opinion, but I notice his post wasn't deleted for being "uninformed" or called "ranting" or "spouting". Very disappointing, but not especially surprising if I'm honest.

If I was turning the thread into an off-topic political thing that would perhaps merit a warning, but I wasn't doing that. Deleting posts is just... gross. Perhaps this will be deleted too? I bet it will. Oh well. Maybe some introspection about why boards is declining is necessary? How ironic. Perhaps a new thread on the decline of traditional forums like Boards.ie is in order?

Anyway, I'll leave it to you guys. I was hoping to get into some more discussion and theories I have about what's coming down the pipe for the traditional media sector. It's an interesting topic.

Bye!

flogen

J_M_G wrote: »

It was highly relevant to the discussion of traditional media decline and I can assure you I am far from uninformed on the topic. Your bias is showing. But I'll refrain from explicitly political commentary.

No it wasn’t. You were ranting about the immigration system and making baseless generalisations about the culture and IQ of groups of the population.

Your argument about the impact diversity is having on the media remained even after I took a sizeable chunk of your post out, which shows how much of it was irrelevant.

Please stay on topic.

L1011

So a lot of the freefall in sales since March was blamed on retailers closing. As those reopen I wonder how many will resume selling newspapers at all

My local train station shop has not taken papers back for instance

IRE60

L1011 wrote: »

So a lot of the freefall in sales since March was blamed on retailers closing. As those reopen I wonder how many will resume selling newspapers at all

My local train station shop has not taken papers back for instance

Inspired by that comment 'freefall in sales' by L1011, I pealed back the curtains to investigate that.

The numbers and pretty tables behind this are on the usual platform which I can't mention as the sword of damocles hovers after my last bad.

The one thing -News UK have not reported since February as they are allowed to do under the ABC Covid rules - and that's a fair chunk of numbers missing from the analysis. However, my 'theory' is that they are no different to other papers under the microscope.

Briefly its shows that between February and June the mornings are down 7% and the Sundays down 2%. Not exactly freefall it would transpire.

JTMan

IRE60 wrote: »

The numbers and pretty tables behind this are on the usual platform which I can't mention as the sword of damocles hovers after my last bad.

IRE60 wrote: »

Briefly its shows that between February and June the mornings are down 7% and the Sundays down 2%. Not exactly freefall it would transpire.

Yeah, but some publications are in freefall as your great stats suggest:
--> The FT is down 26% YoY which is probably due to office been closed and i am told that even some offices that reopen are no longer getting newspapers delivered due to Covid.
--> The Irish Daily Star is down 18% YoY. Less sport has to be playing a role.
--> Double digit declines for Express, Mail and Mirror.

Loafing Oaf

Anyone know when the circulation report for the first half of 2020 is due?
Although I suppose if INM are still opting out it will be of less interest...

JTMan

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Anyone know when the circulation report for the first half of 2020 is due?
Although I suppose if INM are still opting out it will be of less interest...

IT have left the ABC audits too so there will be no report unfortunately.

IRE60

JTMan wrote: »

Yeah, but some publications are in freefall as your great stats suggest:
--> The FT is down 26% YoY which is probably due to office been closed and i am told that even some offices that reopen are no longer getting newspapers delivered due to Covid.
--> The Irish Daily Star is down 18% YoY. Less sport has to be playing a role.
--> Double digit declines for Express, Mail and Mirror.

The year on year is always going to be depressing! The interesting one there was the FT. The perennial question in paper buying who is the 'primary' purchaser. In the case of the FT it's unquestionably 'the office'.

Lads in KPMG and MOPS etc have disbursed to leafy suburbs and I'd say they are fcuked if they are going to reach into the trousers for the FT every day on their own bat!

JTMan

IRE60 wrote: »

The year on year is always going to be depressing! The interesting one there was the FT. The perennial question in paper buying who is the 'primary' purchaser. In the case of the FT it's unquestionably 'the office'.

Lads in KPMG and MOPS etc have disbursed to leafy suburbs and I'd say they are fcuked if they are going to reach into the trousers for the FT every day on their own bat!

Yeah and difficult to see how businesses will resume FT purchases in the future when staff only occasionally go into the old fashioned office. At least the FT can somewhat rely on their growing digital subscriptions but redundancies at the FT show how even the FT still has print dependencies.

Loafing Oaf

JTMan wrote: »

At least the FT can somewhat rely on their growing digital subscriptions

I still have a working FT login from my old media analysis job which I was laid of from about four years ago. Seemingly would cost me nearly a euro a day if I was paying for it but kind of wasted on me cos I have feck all interest in business:p

Beechwoodspark

Am I right in saying the indo app has now dropped the premium articles wall?

I seem to be able to access all articles on the app without any sub

John_Rambo

Not entirely on thread but Argos are pulling the press on the catalogue. A serious decision after a lot of meetings I'd imagine with a big impact on the print trade.

Gloomtastic!

IRE60 wrote: »

The year on year is always going to be depressing! The interesting one there was the FT. The perennial question in paper buying who is the 'primary' purchaser. In the case of the FT it's unquestionably 'the office'.

Lads in KPMG and MOPS etc have disbursed to leafy suburbs and I'd say they are fcuked if they are going to reach into the trousers for the FT every day on their own bat!

All staff at KPMG get an online sub to the Indo and IT. Not sure about FT.

dohboy

This place really dies when posters can't rub their thighs over falling sales and job losses, huh

IRE60

dohboy wrote: »

This place really dies when posters can't rub their thighs over falling sales and job losses, huh

You'd find that a good few people contributing here either work or have worked directly in the industry or in the periphery of the business.

Troll through the posts here. There's very little rubbing of hands on the back of falling sales or indeed job losses.

dohboy

IRE60 wrote: »

You'd find that a good few people contributing here either work or have worked directly in the industry or in the periphery of the business.

Troll through the posts here. There's very little rubbing of hands on the back of falling sales or indeed job losses.

can you point me to any threads, or posts even, in praise of Irish newspapers/media on here? I couldn't find any

Gloomtastic!

dohboy wrote: »

can you point me to any threads, or posts even, in praise of Irish newspapers/media on here? I couldn't find any

The thread is about the factual decline of newspapers circulation/readership here and overseas. It’s not meant to be a advert for the media.

Please stop trolling.

JTMan

Very interesting developments with the new artificial intelligence system known as GPT-3 and what effects it might have for journalism.

The WSJ have an interesting article here (paywall) on potential effects.

If the price is right, there’s a good chance that GPT-3 will make major changes in our working lives. For a range of knowledge workers—news reporters, lawyers, coders and others—the introduction of systems like GPT-3 will likely shift their activities from drafting to editing. On the plus side, the biggest barrier to getting work done, the tyranny of the blank paper or the blank screen, may become much rarer. It’s simple enough just to keep clicking GPT-3’s “generate” button until something halfway usable appears.

The tyranny of the blank screen, though, forces us to think through a problem in a way that editing does not. Human nature probably means that people will often be more intent on massaging an AI’s output to the point that it looks acceptable than on doing their own work to sort through ambiguous data and conflicting arguments. Like GPS navigation, which started as just a tool but has reduced our engagement with the act of navigating, AI language generators may start by sparing us labor but soon spare us thought.

jmcc

Another article on GPT-3 but this time from MIT's Technology Review:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/22/1007539/gpt3-openai-language-generator-artificial-intelligence-ai-opinion/

Regards...jmcc

IRE60

Very interesting interview from the Media Show on BBC. Mark Thompson - from C4 then DG at the BBC and then a transition to CEO of New York Times.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000m5k7

dohboy

Profits up by a fifth at publisher of Irish Daily Star

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/profit-up-by-a-fifth-at-publisher-of-irish-daily-star-1.4346544?mode=amp

JTMan

dohboy wrote: »

Profits up by a fifth at publisher of Irish Daily Star

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/profit-up-by-a-fifth-at-publisher-of-irish-daily-star-1.4346544?mode=amp

If anyone every wants to understand how newspapers are still profitable then Independent Star is a good example.

Revenues were once 30 million EUR in their hay day. Circulation was 110k in their hay day.

Now ... turnover was down YoY from €16.1 million to €14.8 million. Their circulation has declined to about 32k.

So how are they still here? Cuts, cuts and then more cuts. In 1 year alone staff numbers went from 78 to 72. Other cuts include production cuts which means less pages and less content.

Ghost newspapers, like the Irish Daily Star, are being kept alive in a coma type state. If Reach gets its hands on the Irish Daily Star you can bet their will be more cuts and more copy and paste content from the UK.

Cuts can only go so far but might still have some distance to go.

Interesting that the directors are "projecting cashflows" for 2020 which might suggest that revenue has dropped much further in 2020.

JTMan

INM are to stop "investing" in the Herald website and remove their segregated news team.

Translation please? Herald is fecked, website is a waste of resources and the newspaper will just republish Indo articles with tiny customisation?

Loafing Oaf

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/media-critical-to-ireland-s-democracy-says-taoiseach-1.4394892

Never fear, the Future of Media Commission is here to save us

Gloomtastic!

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/media-critical-to-ireland-s-democracy-says-taoiseach-1.4394892

Never fear, the Future of Media Commission is here to save us

When in doubt, commission a report. :rolleyes:

StackSteevens

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

When in doubt, commission a report. :rolleyes:

I see that the former editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, is a member - can anyone remind me how many millions his time in charge ended up costing the Scott Trust?

Putting him on the board is akin to putting the Captain of the Titanic in charge of the Howth lifeboat.

IRE60

Good numbers from the New York Times : https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/11/for-the-first-time-the-new-york-times-digital-subscriptions-generate-more-revenue-than-its-print-ones/

jmcc

IRE60 wrote: »

Good numbers from the New York Times : https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/11/for-the-first-time-the-new-york-times-digital-subscriptions-generate-more-revenue-than-its-print-ones/

Yep but is it an even-driven boost (US elections) and will those subs renew?

Regards...jmcc

JTMan

jmcc wrote: »

Yep but is it an even-driven boost (US elections) and will those subs renew?

No doubt that the elections (and Covid spare time) have played a part, but there has being a clear trend for the last few years towards paying for digital subs for quality publications, which will continue long after the elections and Covid. FT, Economist, NYT etc are all doing exceptionally well with digital sub numbers.