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Regional press ‘set to lose £200m’ in ad revenues by 2014

Regional newspapers are set to lose more than £200m in print advertising revenue over the next two years, according to predictions from media investment analysts.

The regional press is expected to bear the brunt of a decline of nearly £400m for the whole of the UK newspaper market by the end of next year, according to Group M, which is WPP’s consolidated media investment operation.

The decline in regional print advertising spend is forecast to fall 9.6pc this year, which equates to £104m, and a further 11.6pc or £113m next year – making £217m in total.

It says the total print advertising spend for the regional press would then be at £865m, falling below £1bn for the first time.

In the report, it also states that digital revenues are only expected to make up about 25pc of the total UK newspaper decline of around £388m.

Adam Smith, futures director at Group M, praised newspaper titles for quickly developing digital revenue streams but said that online income did not make up for the decline in print advertising.

He told the Guardian: “UK print brands are active digital innovators, but we estimate this currently retrieves at best a quarter of the ad investment departing their physical formats.

“Part of the problem is perhaps press circulations parachuting rather than plummeting; part perhaps tablet growth not being as explosive as the internet was.”

According to the report, national newspapers in the UK are predicted to lose £170m in print advertising revenue by the end of 2014.

16 comments

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  • June 19, 2013 at 11:05 am
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    Reading this panicky lament I could see Private Frazer’s eyes widening as he wails “Wurrrrr all doomed”.

    Oh well, maybe I can get a job dreaming up worst-possible scenarios based on speculative figures and publishing alarmist reports about it.

    Shroud-waving seems to be a growth industry.

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  • June 19, 2013 at 11:54 am
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    Difficult to comment on a forecast dressed up as a fact – that said there is one cast iron guarantee and that is Group M will be wrong.

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  • June 19, 2013 at 11:56 am
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    Online advertising is the only way you can ever turn the tide now, but if this analyst is right it’s a very worrying position. Do you go for paywalls on websites to make up for the cover price loss or do you go all in that the number of hits on a free website will be enough to attract sufficient advertising cash to keep you afloat?

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  • June 19, 2013 at 12:33 pm
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    Digital just isn’t going to bring in enough money. If there was a way, someone would have found it by now. This is the End of Days.

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  • June 19, 2013 at 12:47 pm
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    Perhaps if they improved the quality of the papers it would help.
    There has been far too many talented people getting the chop in favour of untrained visual morons.If you pay peanuts you get monkeys

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  • June 19, 2013 at 1:32 pm
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    If these predictions turn out to be accurate, it underlines the scale of the challenge facing the regional press. The last thing it needs is a new expensive arbitration service for complainants, some of whom will inevitable be vexatious or opportunistic.

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  • June 19, 2013 at 1:45 pm
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    Adam Smith should have been a diplomat. Praising newspapers for ‘quickly’ developing digital revenue streams is a very polite view.
    The reality is they were very slow to develop digital income as it was obvious that however good and aggressive they chased digital cash, they were swimming against the tide and going backwards (and drowning!).
    In ad terms, it’s retrieving £1 for every £4 lost. It’s lemming economics.

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  • June 19, 2013 at 2:28 pm
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    As I have said time and time again, there is no digital lifeboat for the regional press, the only future is under a completely different ownership structure. The corporates are basically finished but most are choosing to ignore it for the time being. Apart from Local world whop are definitely in Monty world – which is far from reality.

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  • June 19, 2013 at 3:13 pm
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    The only future is surely newspapers with vastly reduced numbers of staff, 2 or 3 per weekly, churning out re-written press releases which are simultaneously put online & in print. Photographers will be employed on Saturday afternoons, if they’re lucky, to cover sport.
    Digital revenue won’t fund anything beyond this, not if companies want to keep the shareholders happy.
    Nobody can tell how effective paywalls would be but the standard of most newspaper websites combined with twitter means the revenue surely wouldn’t come close to existing income from print versions, even with the savings on print costs etc.
    In my view the current trend for price rises might produce more sales income in the short-run but is really only serving to accelerate the speed of the industry’s decline.

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  • June 19, 2013 at 3:23 pm
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    I have a wizard idea. Employ experienced reporters who attend meetings, write good local stories and know the area. Cover everything you possibly can in the district. Then have a few good subs who can correct all the mistakes in the copy and can lay out a good page. Then make sure your newspaper is available in as many outlets as possible. Stop employing young people who can’t string a sentence together. Stop publishing newspapers full of errors. Stop expecting the public to write your newspaper for you; they have no idea how to make a story readable and have a lackadaisical attitude when it comes to accuracy, which reflects badly on you. That way you might increase circulation and more advertising will follow. Realise that whatever product you are selling, be it a Nissan or a newspaper, if you devalue and downgrade it, you will sell fewer. Embrace the digital age but don’t give away your core business prematurely and be left with two half arsed products but not one good one.

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  • June 20, 2013 at 8:08 am
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    Regional media relies heavily on local businesses for its advertising revenues Local businesses generally think ad rates are too high and they don’t understand digital advertising. A hint perhaps to what needs to change …….

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  • June 20, 2013 at 8:46 am
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    The answer is so simple, Pay Walls – Give me a regional paper and I will show them how to make a profit on-line. People are just approaching the problem the wrong way round are from a ‘printed way.’

    As for print being dead, think again, there is a massive market as I have found out going from web to print. Either way its great news for local publishers like me as we are able to evolve and change far quicker. If I had access to a decent press I would roll out a news paper tomorrow there is a still a big demand, large publishers just need to look at the problem differently.

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  • June 20, 2013 at 10:14 am
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    re: Paul Smith – you want access to a decent press? try Mortons at Horncastle. I produce monthly newspapers with them and the quality is generally excellent.

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  • June 21, 2013 at 10:14 am
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    @ Trevor Lee: ‘Local businesses don’t understand digital advertising’…REALLY! I think SMB spend with Google shows you are way off the mark. Most small to medium business (I’m guessing that’s how you define local) invest time and resource in digital marketing, with quantifiable results, thus reducing the need to spend on local print.

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  • June 21, 2013 at 5:33 pm
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    Last person out please turn the lights off – if we are not already cut off

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