Newspapers

If you have been anywhere around the media business in the past few years, you have heard it stated that print is dying. That is not exactly true. Many small magazines and weekly newspapers are still in demand. But, sadly, most other print products have suffered greatly and continue to decline.

Local newspapers, both large and small, have been hit extremely hard with rising print and labor costs as well as severe drops in advertising and circulation income. In the old days... five or ten years ago... circulation was a major revenue source for daily newspapers. That revenue about covered the cost of printing and delivering the newspaper, leaving the advertising income to cover other expenses and provide the 25% to 30% profit newspapers were expected to deliver. However, in many markets, including Bowling Green, newspaper circulation has dropped by 50% or more. This drop has hurt circulation and advertising revenue.

Remember, buy local advertising by the thousands of eyes you reach. So, if an ad cost was $500 when circulation was 20,000 copies daily then it stands to reason that the same ad should now only cost $250. However, as Paul Harvey used to say... "Now for the rest of the story."

Circulation has dropped for many reasons, but most of all because the younger demographics don't read the newspaper any more. Heck, most of them are not even interested in local news. The younger demo... 20 to 60 years old... are mostly getting their local news from the Internet... websites and social media. You would think this would be an opportunity for local newspapers to at least capture some of their lost readers with their own websites. However, some newspapers have chosen to try a paid website model and, for the most part, the younger demo will go someplace else. They are used to getting nearly all their online content free and are not interested in paying for content in which they are not even that interested.

Newspapers were the kings of local content only a few years ago, but sadly they didn't see the writing on the walls... see what I did there... and when it finally dawned on them what the Internet was doing to their formerly successful businesses it was too late to catch up to the curve... much less get ahead of it. In many markets the local TV stations have leveraged their news, weather and sports coverage from their newscasts into being the community's online news source, adding another nail in the local newspapers' coffins.

In today's market, if you need to reach adults 60+ for your business... say a funeral home or medical service aimed at seniors... the newspaper is certainly still a viable option. But if you, like most of the world, are trying to reach women 25-54, there are numerous other more cost-efficient options.