The massive paradigm shift in the newspaper industry continues to sweep history and tradition aside.
In Tasmania there have been journalist redundancies, and News Ltd is revving up its strategy of nationwide conformity. All the tabloids will be of exact same size; the content for each section uniform and done by Call Centres of sub-editors … thus some sections will be done in Brisbane or Sydney or Melbourne and zapped to News’ snazzy new $30mill press at Technopark … which is already printing The Australian, and the Herald Sun for their Tasmanian readerships.
Stung by falling circulations there have been promotional blitzes … If you were lucky enough you might have copped a nice free mug courtesy of the Oz’s recent marketing strategy.
In Britain change has been even more dramatic; for example, The London Evening Standard is to become a free newspaper.
About 600,000 copies of the paper – which currently costs 50p – will be given out in London from 12 October. Current circulation is about 250,000.
The move follows Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev taking control of the Standard from Daily Mail-owner Associated Newspapers in January.
Meawnhile in the US:
US: US newspaper industry not seeking bailout: NAA US Newspapers
WASHINGTON, Sept 24 AFP – The US newspaper industry is struggling, with seven major companies in bankruptcy and 30,000 jobs lost since 2007, but it will not seek a government bailout, the head of the Newspaper Association of America said on Thursday.
“The newspaper industry is not seeking a financial ‘bailout’ or any other kind of special subsidy,” NAA president John Sturm told a committee hearing of the US House of Representatives on The Future of Newspapers.
“We don’t believe direct government financial assistance is appropriate for an industry whose core mission is news gathering, analysis and dissemination,” he said.
The NAA chief’s remarks came a day after a poll released by Sacred Heart University found that nearly 80 per cent of Americans opposed using tax dollars to help out failing newspapers.
Sturm, whose association represents nearly 2,000 newspapers accounting for more than 90 per cent of daily US circulation, said there were several areas in which Congress could help the industry including amending the tax code and loosening pension requirements.
A bill which would allow newspapers to become non-profit entities while continuing to generate advertising revenue “could work in certain situations”, he said, but is not a “comprehensive solution to the problems in the industry”.
“In the near term, we recognise that newspapers — on their own — must adjust their business models to find a way to monetise online content,” Sturm said.
He did not provide details but a number of US newspapers are currently examining ways to charge readers on the Web for news they currently get for free.
Several leading US technology companies recently submitted proposals to the NAA on building payment platforms that would allow newspapers to charge for content online.
“Newspaper companies have been aggressively examining new business models while also exploring new systems that would allow newspapers and other news content creators to track, detect and license online content which is being used by portals and aggregators for their own commercial gain,” Sturm said.
“We expect that these solutions will be in the marketplace within the next six months,” he said.
Sturm warned that local journalism, investigative and original reporting were endangered “if newspapers are not able to obtain fair and reasonable compensation for the content that they produce”.
“The creators of valuable content cannot survive without direct compensation from those who use their creative works,” he said. “It doesn’t work for music, books or movies; in the long run, it will not work for newspaper-generated content either.”
AFP jnb
BBC and Lindsay Tuffin
