Future print models have to prove themselves to the British

With the announcement that the London Times and the associated Sunday paper will soon only be offered for a fee on the Internet, the media group News Corp. the discussion about the future of newspapers reignited. Just a few days later, the Scottish newspaper The Southern Reporter took the same route.

Not only were the two publications worlds apart in terms of circulation, but both announcements showed that Great Britain was something of a test area for the future of print media, reports the New York Times. It has not yet been decided whether and how newspapers can assert themselves in the digital era.

It is unclear whether one can convince enough readers to pay for online content to compensate for the losses in print advertising and circulation or whether it makes more sense to continue to make web content available free of charge and to rely on increasing income from online advertising to hope. Great Britain is developing into a kind of test area on this issue, Vanessa Clifford of the media agency Mindshare is quoted as saying: “Great Britain still loves newspapers, despite the talk about their demise. If you can’t get the British to pay for it, then you probably won’t get anywhere. ”

In fact, the UK newspaper market is doing comparatively well. The ten largest newspapers collectively sell 10 million newspapers a day. Applied to the 60 million inhabitants, this is a high percentage and is well above the values ​​of France or Italy. In addition, the importance of exclusive reports in newspapers, so-called scoops, is still very great. Nonetheless, the start of the digital age and not least the economic crisis have also left their mark on the newspaper market in Great Britain. pte

www.timesonline.co.uk,
www.newscorp.com,
www.mindshare.de