Newspaper Society director David Newell has delivered an upbeat message about the industry in his annual report to the organisation’s ruling council.

He said the industry’s commercial position was stabilising and that publishers are now reporting an improved outlook in terms of advertising revenues.

“Despite the suddenness and severity of the advertising recession which has hit all media sectors globally, local media ad revenues have been stabilising over the summer,” said David.

“Unlike many of its media competitors, local newspaper print readership is being maintained and the industry’s investment in multimedia channels means that it is reaching more of the population than ever as well as attracting new online ad revenues.”

In his report, David cited recent research from Ofcom which found that consumers regard regional and local newspapers and regional TV as the most important of all media to society.

He also quoted a recent Mintel study which pointed out that “no other media gives the same commitment and attention to local and regional events as the regional press.”

Comments

Chris Youett (26/10/2009 10:05:11)
Delighted to hear NS supremo David Newall confirm that many journalists already know – so why the continuing round of redundancies and corporate self harm, David? When are your members going to stop “giving away” digital services and start charging the market rate. That will get your members back into growth mode faster than they can erronious blame TV!

tim cowen (26/10/2009 15:44:24)
Getting the Tube to work this morning, with my £1.99 cappuccino, and my free Metro, I suddenly realised where the newspaper industry has been going wrong. It has no idea what its product is worth, and as a result has ruthlessly cut prices (to try and maintain or grow market share) to such an extent that it has educated its customers to expect that product for free. The coffee industry, by comparison, has decided that cappuccino costs £1.99 – and has educated the consumer to agree. Until news media can agree what the “product” of news is worth it is always going to struggle to get decent revenues; ironic really, since a newspaper is an infinitely more sophisticated and complex product than a cup of coffee.

J (26/10/2009 16:01:01)
I think somewhere along the line newspapers believed that consumers wouldn’t pay for their news, so they gave it away for free. For hundreds of years consumers PAID for news, so why did they suddenly stop charging when the internet came along? what the hell possessed them to give it away free, please tell!