The newspaper business was built for a world where one product served everyone and advertising paid for most of it. That model has gone. What replaces it is still being worked out title by title, from national groups to weeklies covering a single town.
Reader revenue is the clearest shift. Even Reach, which argued for free access for years, now puts some of its journalism behind a paywall, and the regional titles doing best changed their newsrooms before they asked anyone to pay. Ownership keeps changing too. National World rebuilt local editorships after years of centralisation, and the Observer is being reinvented as a premium print and digital title under new owners.
The strongest publishers understand the difference because they are not trying to be everything to everyone. They are trying to be essential to someone.
Chris Sherrard News media
Local news is where the pressure shows most. Millions of people now live without a dedicated local title, and new reader-funded and membership startups are moving into the gaps. Platforms are pulling back from news at the same time, which leaves trust and a direct relationship with readers as the assets that matter most.
Print hasn't disappeared either. Well-run weeklies still hold on to their readers, with circulation falling slowly while digital audiences grow.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on news media, from reader revenue and newsroom change to ownership, local news and trust, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
Where is the growth opportunity for today’s publishers? Douglas McCabe tracks how the commercial model has evolved over the past fifty years and examines whether a better understanding of what online audiences want, will help drive future growth.
We asked Chris Sherrard, editor-in-chief of The Irish News, what does best practice publishing look like in news media? This is what he said…
After years of resisting paywalls, Reach is now launching them across its titles. But David Higgerson, Reach’s chief content officer, carefully avoided the word ‘U-turn’ when interviewed by Steve Dyson.
It’s one thing to think that readers should pay for your journalism, but the reality is that unless you improve your offering, then you will struggle to start charging for it, as DC Thomson Editor-in-Chief Frank O’Donnell tells Ciar Byrne.
How can you edit a regional newspaper when you never visit the area you’re writing about? By filling it with generic content, an approach that National World’s David Montgomery, the new owner of JPI Media, is rapidly doing away with.
Ray Snoddy talks to Co-CEO Rich Furness about the thinking behind Tortoise Media’s acquisition of the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper and about their plans for its future.
What’s the outlook for national news media in 2024? Christian Broughton, CEO of The Independent, looks ahead.
There is a new generation of entrepreneurs launching local media businesses, bringing with them new ideas on business models and funding. Phil Clark looks at some of the stand-out examples.
With Meta backing away from ‘news’ and AI accelerating the growth of disinformation, we need to redouble our efforts to safeguard access to quality journalism, says News Media Association Chief Executive Owen Meredith.
East Lothian is not just the best place to live – it has the best newsbrand too. Alan Geere heads over the border to find out what’s happening in the world of Scottish weeklies.
Google with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the leading global trade association for the mobile industry, this week announced the launch of an updated version of ‘Our Mobile Planet’.
Some of the biggest names in journalism including Mail Online, Channel 4, The Guardian, BBC and Wall Street Journal have today been announced among the finalists for this year's Online Media Awards.
AOP last week revealed the shortlist of nominees in its eleventh Digital Publishing Awards.
Err… tip # 4 might not win any awards for originality, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth saying. For consumer magazine publishers, writes James Evelegh, it is critical that you develop a tablet edition of your magazine now.
Telegraph Media Group (TMG) has announced a partnership with Citi Group.
In the week they celebrated their 18th birthday, River has announced the redesign and re-launch of their corporate website.
UK mobile phone users will, in 2016, consume five times as much social media, on average browse four times as many web pages and download nearly 12 times as many megabytes of applications according to the latest forecasts from Inform Telecoms & Media
At the ABC Board meeting last week, plans to develop a new flexible online reporting system have been approved.
Earlier this month, the entire Catholic Herald archive (1935-2011) was published online by digital start-up Netcopy.
Madrid-based publishing company PRISA Noticias has extended its relationship with Atex, a leading provider of software for media-rich industries, with a new deal for enhancing its content management solution.
In recent years, digital has moved rapidly from nice-to-have, to fundamental part of everything we do, and yet the process of digital transition at many publishing companies remains incomplete. Tim Faircliff looks at what publishers need to do to ens
Print might still be the platform of choice for a majority of magazine subscribers, but the trend towards digital, writes Julian Thorne, is gathering pace.
Last November, Dennis Publishing launched an iPad app for its successful news digest, the Week. The preceding twelve months had been a period of frenetic design activity and agonising over all aspects of publishing strategy. Kerin O’Connor looks at s
With the conclusion of Module 2, the Leveson Inquiry reached its half way point. Module 2 has seen less celebrity glitz but there have still been some explosive revelations. There has also been, writes John Slattery, a distinct lack of balance.
UK publishers are bullish about prospects for the industry in 2012. That is one of the main findings of the Association of Online Publishers’ annual Organisation Census. Tim Cain summarises the key findings of the research, which indicate that the ne
