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.
Georgina Harvey, first female president of the Newspaper Society and managing director of Trinity Mirror’s Regional Newspapers, has spent much of the last year being very annoyed, frustrated, offended and sometimes downright angry. Ray Snoddy finds o
WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, and the CBS-SIMI business school in Copenhagen are inviting applications for the 2011 Leaders Media & Newspaper Executive Development Program.
The Association of Online Publishers (AOP) has appointed James Brown, Digital Sales Director, Telegraph Media Group (TMG) as its new Commercial Committee Chair with immediate effect.
The winners of the Regional Press Awards were announced at an Awards Lunch, hosted by Nick Ferrari (pictured), on 11 May.
Guardian News & Media has launched its biggest ever summer marketing season, called ‘Music Loves Summer’.
Linking Mobile, the first UK based global mobile affiliate network, has launched, and has announced its first advertiser partners: Groupon, Peugeot and Ghost Telecom.
Both consumer and business to business publishers are grappling with the challenges of digital media, but their priorities still seem very different, writes Carolyn Morgan.
When the national press gets mad, it gets really mad, writes Jon Slattery. And it is absolutely furious about the growing number of super-injunctions being imposed by what it sees as a judge-made privacy law.
Loyalty and intensity must be the mantras for media companies in the next decade, writes Jim Chisholm.
On Friday 13 May Metro, the free urban national newspaper, in partnership with Red Bull, will publish for the first time a pocket size issue of the paper.
Johnston Press plc has published its Interim Management Statement which has been drawn up for the 18 weeks to 7 May 2011.
BBC Magazines Bristol has this week announced the launch of Man In Space, a fully interactive app that tells the story of mankind’s five decades beyond Earth.
The PCC has upheld a complaint made by Tim Farron MP, President of the Lib Dems, that a series of articles in The Daily Telegraph in Dec 2010 contained information which had been obtained using subterfuge in breach of Clause 10 (Clandestine devices a
The NFRN has reacted angrily to the publication of the Press Distribution Forum’s quarterly report.
Advice on how UK businesses and organisations can comply with a new EU law on the use of cookies technology has been published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
