Regional publisher Johnston Press is nearing a “tipping point” at which digital revenue growth outstrips print revenue decline, one of its senior executives said today.
Paul Napier, group editorial development director for JP, made the claim during the opening session of the Society of Editors Conference in Southampton looking at changing business models in the industry.
He said that the gap between digital revenue growth and print revenue decline was now in “low single figures.”
Paul also said it was “unlikely” that the company would reconsider the introduction of online paywalls, but raised the prospect of introducing a form of registration as a data-capture exercise.
He told the conference that Johnston Press was “very close’ to the point where growing digital revenues outstrip falling print revenues. It is in low single figures, we are close that tipping point.”
Last week’s interim management statement revealed that the rate of print revenue decline at JP slowed from 4.5pc in the first half of 2014 to 3.1pc in the third quarter, while digital revenues continued to grow by 19pc, although no actual revenue figures were given.
During the conference session Paul was also asked whether JP had any further plans to introduce online paywalls, following an abortive experiment five years ago.
He responded: “You are unlikely to see paywalls (but) we are likely to play with some sort of data registration process.”
Paul also echoed recent comments by JP chief executive Ashley Highfield suggesting that increasing the amount of user-generated content in newspapers would release staff for serious investigative journalism.
“There are efficiencies to be found in newsprint freeing up staff to do other things,” he said.
“There is still some space to do public interest journalism, but funded by a mass audience business model,” he added.
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“There is still some space to do public interest journalism, but funded by a mass audience business model,”
Dear god. We don’t want any of that public interest journalism do we?
Might get in the way of copying and pasting tiresome press releases.
Who IS this guy?
I mean, seriously.
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Good to see there’s “still some space to do public interest journalism”. The rest of the space available goes to non public interest journalism, presumably.
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I’m still confused by this talk of ‘tipping points’ by JP and others.
So does this mean, or imply, that digital revenue will soon be able to sustain JP in its current form by replacing print revenue?
Or does it mean that print revenue will become negligible and digital revenue will be just enough to support a dramatically smaller, possibly even a shell, company?
Surely someone in a room full of journalists and news people asked for the numbers behind these dramatic headlines?
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The thing that alarms me about this is his comment on how JP will ‘play with’ data registration.
Surely if media companies are ever going to make serious money online they have to get beyond the stage of just ‘playing’ with ideas?
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Just watching Tipping Point on TV now. Much better than reading Napier’s digi babble from the monotonous JP script.
What a load of bollocks.
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Just watching Tipping Point on TV now. Much better than Napier’s digi-babble.
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Pity they are ‘playing with’ livelihoods, families and their futures.
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This “public interest journalism” malarkey might just catch on.
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Interesting that digital will possibly close the gap……….the success or failure of our industry will be our ability to provide great content across whatever channel people choose, just because we decide that its digital will not force the market, the market will decide for itself.
Average digital yields for a largely unqualified audience will not pay the bills or sustain the business, total audience and reach which can deliver ROI for advertisers is the answer………………….
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Very clever use of stats
Where are the figures?
What small proportion of overall revenue comes from digital these days?
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Spot on, Dave, London. Everyone needs to stop forcing digital down everyone’s throats. Ultimately the public will decide what they want. As they do in any industry. Look at vinyl.
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Some of their website users trying to access videos have apparently first been tasked with negotiating a ridiculous hurdle whereby they are asked to answer a question relating to an advertiser before they can proceed!
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Tipping point…. into the dustbin of history more like
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There are lies, damned lies and statistics!!
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Not just accessing videos, Bloodsucker… stories too! It’s a desperate attempt to flog advertising by making it compulsory to ‘view’ or ‘engage with’ the advert or advertiser. At least in print, you could scan and skip the ad, now you’ve no choice but to sit through an interminable (and often loud and unseemly) advert before you can read the story. And IMHO, there are only so many times someone will do this before they go elsewhere for their news. But hey, JP will go its own sweet way, regardless.
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It is likely the digital and paper revenue will get closer. This is because the papers are being deliberately run down and their sales will drop and then their ad revenue. Unless someone is telling giant porkies about sales figures to advertisers? But a nice firm like JP would not do that.
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