The Demise of Print

On Life Support: Adweek

This story from Poynter Online raises a new angle on the demise of print meme (I never thought I'd use that word; I hope I am doing so correctly).   Nielsen Business Media is not stopping the print publication of Adweek, but it is decreasing the frequency of physical printing.

Nielsen Business Media has announced that it is cutting Adweek magazine from 49 issues a year to 36, while expanding its Web site... "We've seen our audience move online in terms of where they get their information," Portfolio quoted Nielsen senior vice president for the media and marketing group Sabrina Crow as saying.

Portfolio, the source for the Poynter story and the above quote, has some stats:

In 2006, Adweek had an average of 15 advertising pages per standalone issue, according to the company. In 2007, the average number of ad pages has dropped to 13, a decline of about 13 percent.

Circulation has also slipped. In 2005, its average circulation was 24,067 and was down to 21,271 for the six months ending in June 2007, a 12 percent decrease, according to BPA Worldwide, its circulation auditor.

Meanwhile, its website has nearly 5 times as many unique visitors as the magazine has subscribers. Adweek.com has seen an average of 103,500 unique visitors per month since January 2007, according to comScore Media Metrix.

RIP: Taloussanomat

Taloussanomat, the Finnish business daily, will shut down its print version and focus on online-only delivery of its content by the end of 2007.   

The Editor's Weblog reports:

The closing down of the print edition was solely a business decision, based on several trends and realities:

• Contrarily to the overall ad market (growth 6% per year), the Finnish business ad market has been declining, down by nearly 9% a year.
• Readership to the online edition of the paper has boomed, growing 70% this year, up to about 280,000 weekly unique (whereas print readership has remained stable).
• By nature, business news is more adapted to be consumed online, due to the speed and reactivity of the Web, but also due its increased functionality and interactive graphic capacity.

More Links:

• Two articles from www.editorsweblog.com, here and here.

 

RIP: PC World Australia

TechCrunch reports that PC World Australia will discontinue print distribution while still publishing the same content online.

IDG Communications managing director Don Kennedy said that there would be no immediate editorial downsizing as the publication would continue online. A source close to the company said that reader numbers of the print edition of PC World Australia had declined by over 50% in the last two years.

The shift starts in January 2008.