NAA sent me a letter with this month’s Presstime magazine letting me know that this is the last print edition I will be receiving. They are moving online only. Truth be told, it was probably the last print edition I would be getting anyway you see I graduated from NYU in January and NAA wants proof that I still qualify for their student rate. I do, but you know what NAA, I’m not wasting my time to send you the appropriate paperwork.
Why is NAA, the NEWSPAPER Association of America, eliminating their print publication and moving online only? The reason they cite in the letter is “to adapt our organization to the realities of today’s newspaper business”. I’m calling bullshit on their reasoning. The real reason I suspect is because NAA is too big a coward to try something innovative and instead is hoping to just hang in there a little longer like everyone else and hope for the best.
According to NAA’s website, here is the association’s purpose:
Today, NAA serves the newspaper industry in strategic efforts to:
. Serve as a catalyst for industry growth
. Identify and disseminate examples of industry innovation
. Provide tools to exchange information and ideas
. Advocate and communicate industry views and interests to the Federal Government and to third-party standards and measurement bodies
. Communicate the vitality of newspaper media to external constituencies including the advertising community, Wall Street and the news media.
Did you read the first and last bullet points? What an awful message eliminating print sends to NAA’s advertisers, NAA’s members, and to the advertisers who spent roughly 34 Billion dollars in PRINT advertising last year. We are adapting “to realities of today’s newspaper business”… by getting out of paper and everything that entails. http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expenditures.aspx This doesn’t sound like adapting to me, it sounds like abandonment and surrender to the whims of whatever may come to newspapers.
Here is what NAA should have done:
Leverage the Newspaper Industry’s greatest asset and that is – the invitation to deliver a print product to people’s homes.
Figure out how to deliver Presstime to readers using existing distribution channels of member newspapers and 3rd party distributors like PCF.
Show newspapers and advertisers how much money NAA is saving by distributing PressTime this way versus the US Post Office. Show Newspapers and Advertisers how their existing distribution infrastructure can be used to deliver products to homes across the nation. What kinds of things? Things like magazines, catalogs, coupons, flyers, samples, and probably many other things an ad or marketing executive would jump at the chance to drop on a subscriber’s doorstep.
For example, I get the Wall Street Journal delivered to my doorstep 6 days a week. Why aren’t my magazines and fishing catalogs delivered this way or anything else for that matter? I can imagine a time in the future when I end my print subscription of WSJ but if I were getting other things via this home delivery service, I would continue to welcome my magazines and catalogs on my front step. It’s a win-win situation.
If NAA thinks that a newsPAPER’s greatest asset is delivering news via websites then they and their members should expect ad revenue to plummet while competition rises everywhere. There is NO WAY to differentiate a newspaper online.
If NAA thinks newspapers are unique media entities, as the association’s mere presence implies, then NAA must push the newspaper industry’s greatest asset – the invitation to deliver a print product to people’s homes. This will open new revenue streams to newspapers and offer advertisers new and less expensive ways of advertising.
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Somebody should hire this guy as a publisher!!
Maybe we’ll finally get somewhere.
This is one of the best things I have read in this year!
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Great post.
But good riddance to the worst-written, least-thought-provoking industry publication (unofficial slogan: Lite news for the news industry!!!) that crosses/crossed my desk. Leaves more time for CJR and E&P, in that order.
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The newspaper industry’s greatest asset is the “invitation” to deliver the paper to the home?
If that is it’s greatest asset, we are really in trouble.
And if “there is NO WAY to differentiate a newspaper online,” doubly so.
“Things like magazines, catalogs, coupons, flyers, samples, and probably many other things an ad or marketing executive would jump at the chance to drop on a subscriber’s doorstep.”
They do already — and they go directly into the trash in my household.
Print publishers are in the information business, not the United Parcel Service business. Print should be, and is being, abandoned in favor of consumption via netbooks and handheld flat-panel devices. This would include new single-copy sales, via short-range on-premise wireless at the newsdealer without the need for subscription.
I’m always surprised at how many people think the internet solves everything. The internet is a great communications distribution platform, but for a newspaper, it doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay the bills even if you remove the print component entirely.
News is a commodity happening around us all the time, always has, always will. The internet makes distributing that content easy and almost free. The problem is that revenue will now come in line with those costs. In other words, news revenue is falling to nearly nothing.
Distribution is costly, and thus allows those who do it to charge a premium for it.
I like the idea of innovating the physical distribution side of newspapers.
I’ve always been puzzled about why the official publication of the Newspaper Assn of America was a MAGAZINE?!?
I spend years in print journalism before becoming a user of cable with a plan to create local converged media focused on news and events in targeted areas. Anyway, check out http://www.nna.org/eweb/dynamicpage.aspx?webcode=Individual. I always thought their publication, Publishers Auxiliary, was far more in tune with community newspapers than the high brow Editor and Publisher.
I agree with the fact that NAA should not have completely abandoned their print edition; however, I also believe that there are ways for a newspaper to differentiate itself online.
With respect to my first point, I’m surprised that NAA did not first do a beta testing by researching how many of its current customers would switch to an e-edition only. NAA could have set up a hybrid model that offered an “express” Presstime edition. It would have short blurbs/summaries of articles and other pertinent information. If subscribers wanted more in-depth information, they could sign-up to receive it through e-mail or go online to naa.org. This option, would in effect, cut down on paper and distribution costs. My thought as to why this came so abruptly is charitable endowments are down and they can only afford to operate in the red for so long.
On to my second point; newspapers can differentiate themselves online. In the past, they have been successful differentiating themselves through their print versions. In today’s environment, newspapers are attempting to do the same thing as they have done in the past, but in a fluid and less static environment. As Marshall Mcluhan pointed out, “the medium is the message.” Without getting into too much detail, it’s about capturing the non-reader and the non-advertiser.
Newspapers must be made relevant. They need to redefine their approach to both their core business and disruptive innovation opportunities to realize long-term prosperity. There is currently no compelling reason to read the print versions of large, metropolitan newspapers, let alone a monthly, non-profit pub. A general-interest daily newspaper and its affiliated website do not reach consumers drawn to resources that focus on narrow, specialized content. However, like many urban, general-interest papers, they are the only genuine mass media outlet throughout their region and many consumers continue to turn to these newspapers regularly for information. For many advertisers, the local paper is still the most efficient way to reach the largest number of people. Ignoring this core business would be a mistake.
In addition, urban newspapers have the added challenges associated with urban decay. There is a
general failure of education at all levels. In a rapidly evolving society in which both students and the
general public are being forced to rely on superfluous information gathered elsewhere, local newspapers should be seen as an economic platform for community development.