Business Coaching

Will a newspaper be an ancient artifact soon?

Just like the times…they just can’t stop changing.

As we’ve said before, the businesses that make it through the recession aren’t necessarily the most successful ones to begin with or the biggest, but those that adapt. This is something a lot of businesses and business owners seem to be having a hard time grasping. At the same time, several different industries are changing rapidly during this rough economic period, making some businesses even harder to stay afloat. For example, newspapers, magazines and print journalism are at risk of becoming extinct.

According to the latest Integrated Newspaper Audience finding from Scarborough Research, in its recently released Scarborough USA study, 74% of U.S. adults, nearly 171 million people, read a newspaper, in print or online, during the past week. The study examined newspaper readership, which captures media patterns and other consumer behaviors of adults across the country, and found that newspapers are still read in print or online by a critical mass of adults in the U.S. on a daily and weekly basis.

Gary Meo, Scarborough Research’s Senior Vice President of Print and Digital Media Services, notes that “While our data does show that print newspaper readership is slowly declining… given the fragmentation of media choices, printed newspapers are holding onto their audiences relatively well… ”

The analysis of data indicated that newspapers are being read by a majority of adults in print and online, but also that these Integrated Newspaper Audiences continue to attract educated, affluent readers. In an average week:
• 79% of adults employed in white collar positions read a newspaper in print or online
• 82% of adults with household incomes of $100,000 or more read a printed newspaper in print or online
• 84% of adults who are college graduates or who have advanced degrees read a printed newspaper in print or online

So…are newspapers really dying? They still might be…the findings say people read print OR online newspapers. Maybe newspapers are growing in the online sector, as the media industry seems like it’s moving that way.

What do you think? Can print news make a comeback? Or is everything going online? And, a more interesting question, could business coaching help some print companies stay afloat?