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.
For specialist information providers, the decision where to draw the line between paid and free content is a delicate one. Give too much away and you risk devaluing your content, but shut too much of it off and you reduce browsing opportunities and y
Winning shedloads of new home delivered customers is all very well, but if you’re losing half of them every year, then you have to invest precious resource and credibility in recanvassing campaigns. A fruitless downward spiral. That is why publishers
In late 2003, the Independent’s move set Fleet Street’s pulse racing. A wave of optimism swept through the industry. Here, surely, was that elusive elixir of circulation. Heady times, but, five years on, how does the newspaper landscape look in the c
Just when you thought you had this whole search thing cracked, and all your web pages fully SEO’d ... along comes Universal Search. Well ... the good news is you don’t need to panic, but you do need to act. Otherwise, says Amanda Watlington, you will
In May 2007, Patrick Farrelly and Ted Glynn were invited to Hanoi to speak at the first ever circulation sales and promotions conference to be held in Vietnam. Here, they recount their experiences.
The publishing sector is in a phase of irreversible transition, but some publishers are further down the road to multi-channel delivery than others, and are therefore better placed to compete with new rivals. Deloitte’s Mark Lee-Amies looks at the ch
Is your website a little tired? Does your team still treat it as an afterthought, only to be updated during downtime between print production schedules? If so, you shouldn’t be too surprised when your readers struggle to find you, and when having fou
When it comes to circulation reporting, traditionally agencies have wanted as much information as possible and newspapers have wanted to reveal ... ahem, slightly less. And, there has been a degree of suspicion on both sides as to the other’s motives
With continuing media fragmentation and the rise of citizen journalism, the issue of trust is ever more pertinent for publishers. Titles which are trusted sources of information and entertainment shine like beacons through the thickening media mist.
For its new owners, the Sport brand is both its strongest asset and greatest liability. On the hyper competitive UK newsstand, any brand recognition has got to be a strength, yet years of trade hostility to the title mean that the new team have got t
Free publications are not new. Door-to-door papers have been around for ages, as have postal B2B free magazines. Even the distribution model is not new; free mags have long been stuffed into the hands of commuters or left in pick-up bins. What is new
The rise and rise of Facebook et al poses many questions for publishers about how they disseminate content and interact with their users. Will publishers be clear headed enough to rise to the challenge or will they find themselves in a Web 3.0 world
Some publishers are now putting as much creative energy into their email marketing, as they once did their direct mail. And they are reaping the rewards. Andrew Majewski presents a case study of four email best practices from Boston Common Press, pub
Getting your readership to contribute content is exactly the right thing to do ... in principle. In practice, however, great care needs to be taken if you are to avoid being deluged with drivel. Peter Sands has ten suggestions on how to manage and be
Home delivery remains an important element of many newspapers’ circulations, particularly amongst the regionals where the tighter concentration of readers makes it an easier process to manage. Andrea Kirkby looks at where home delivery stands today a
