EU Referendum


Media: a dying industry


20/08/2012



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We last had a good look at the newspaper industry in May, when the evidence of decline was all too clear. But to write of "decline" was, if anything, too generous. With the latest (July) circulation figures out, the Press Gazette reports: "double digit percentage losses for most nationals".

The biggest loser amongst the dailies is the BBC's favourite newspaper, the Guardian, which has sustained a circulation loss of 15.85 percent, and recently posted a £76.6 million financial loss. This paper is closely followed by the Financial Times, which managed a 13.61 percent loss.

It is in the Sundays, though, that the biggest drops in circulation are seen, with the Mail on Sunday one of the big losers, shedding a staggering 21.1 percent of its sales. However, that does not compare with the Independent on Sunday (-28.99) and the biggest loser of all, The People (-43.09).

This cannot correctly be called an industry in decline – it is in free fall. It is a dying industry. No enterprise can sustain this level of losses and expect to survive.

Why this should be the case, we have explored many times and our views scarcely bear repetition. Just the narrow subject to which we have devoted this blog to the last few weeks demonstrates the lacklustre performance of an industry which claims as its rationale the ability to inform.

Indicative of the way the industry is going, though, one recalls the triumphant front-page headlines in the 80s, when some of the newspapers were reaching new circulation peaks. But, as circulation plummets, those same newspapers are remarkably silent about their fates.

As always, if you want to be informed, even about newspapers themselves, you have to go elsewhere.