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The Internet, or its latest version known as Web 2.0, is still too young to make any sweeping statements (also known as informed conclusions) about its impact on print U.S. newspapers. Still, we know that newspaper readership among adults - - and among young adults ages 18-25 in particular - - decreased after the Internet came into being.
But here's a little fact you rarely hear about: newspaper readership was declining even before the Internet started transforming businesses and lives in the 1990s.
That said, it is clear that some newspapers will not survive as the Internet progresses. Further, almost all will have to substantially modify their print business models to remain viable. Many, if not most, will have to specialize in some way, or otherwise develop some niche, to retain utility.
What's more, it appears that local news may be 'in.' In an ironic twist, small newspapers may have an easier time transitioning to the brave new world of online journalism than their larger and more-prestigious brothers, the metropolitan dailies. That's because readers can access dozens of web sites for national and international news, but may have only one or two web sites (or perhaps none) for local news, encouraging some of these readers to continue to buy the print paper.
We're in the early innings
But forecasts beyond the above, are, for the most part, either poorly researched or a tad flippant. The industry participants yours truly has conversed with are cautious in their predictions, noting with certainty only that advertising revenue will have much to say about the form and content of both print and Internet newspapers. Right now, the trend among major advertisers - - the Apples (NYSE: AAPL) and Procter & Gambles (NYSE: PG) of the world is clear: more online ads, fewer print ads. If that trend continues across the advertising spectrum, many of the sections you see in a metropolitan daily newspaper today will not exist in the next decade.
Will newly-devised sections - - or print formats - - spring up to replace them? Will sections that could not make it in one city find new revenue life via joint venture operations with other papers (cities), as some metro dailies are doing today?
To be sure, there will be those who categorically state,'This marks the end of the newspaper' and 'Newspapers are dinosaurs.'
Perhaps. But investors should note that newspapers were supposed to die out after radio took off in the 1920s, then after television ownership became widespread in the 1950s, then after 24-news on cable t.v. became the norm during the 1980s, and of course now, in the 2000s, amid the Internet revolution. But each time, despite being outmoded, inconvenient, not-in-step, and definitely not cool, newspapers managed to stick around.
And that should tell you something about the role of newspapers in these United States, at least the ones that the Framers said that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of.
Financial Editor Joseph Lazzaro is based in New York.
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