Newspapers Losing Ad Revenue Online
By Anna Johnson on July 6th, 2010According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ newly released entertainment and media outlook, newspapers are not only selling less print advertising, they’re also selling less advertising on their websites.
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ ‘Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2010-2014′ reveals that newspapers’ share of online advertising revenue has dropped from 16.2 percent in 2005 to 11.4 percent in 2009 and is set to drop to just 7.9 percent by 2014.
At this rate, online newspaper ad revenues will buck the overall growth trend in online ad spending. PWC expects online ad spending to grow by 12.1 percent compounded annually between 2009 and 2014, reaching 33 percent of overall ad spending in 2014. By comparison, PWC forecasts non-digital advertising to grow by just 2.6 percent compounded annually during the same period.
No question, newspapers are under huge competitive pressures from the Internet media. Their cost infrastructures – printing facilities, print workers, traditional journalists, etc – place them in a weak position compared to their online-only competitors.
Will they bite the bullet and abandon paper… or will they die a slow, painful death as they continue preaching (to more and more deaf ears) that people still like reading on paper?
P.S. We’re seeing the cost of e-readers come down right now – both Barnes & Noble and Amazon have recently dropped the prices of their respective Nook and Kindle devices.
Meanwhile, my family has fallen in love with Apple’s iPad.
So, as I look at my bookshelves, brimming with my beloved books, I must conclude – somewhat ruefully – that once e-readers, iPads and their ilk are affordable to the masses, the paper based book and magazine will also die.
It may not be within the next 5 years, or even within the next 10 years, but it’s going to happen…
