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by The Newspup

on Oct 16

Traditional broadsheet media now less than 20% of Fairfax's revenue

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www.theaustralian.news.com.au

Marketers investing in the broadsheets are going to have to think on their feet as time gets lean for the papers.

In a recent speech to the Sydney Institute on the future of print media and quality journalism, Fairfax Media's chief executive David Kirk, defended the company's restructure and 550 redundancies, saying that growing competition meant their papers no longer aimed to deliver the news first, but to deliver it the best quality journalism in a profitable environment.

"Quality is not just about numbers - how many journalists you have - it is about performance and what our journalists produce," he said.

"Quantity does not equal quality."

Today Fairfax, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, was dramatically different from the past as those mastheads now only contributed less than 20% of total earnings, Kirk commented.

New technologies meant Fairfax's newspapers were "no longer the gatekeepers" for news each morning.

"We still do set the news agenda for electronic media - there is no doubt about that. And we set the news agenda because we have the resources to do it."

This further solidifies the important implications marketers must consider when revising their advertising and media strategies, and how best to allocate their budgets in response to declining paper circulation numbers.

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4 Comments

mikevn
  • Wrote on 16 Oct, at 03:50PM
The point in Kirk's statement that The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age now contribute only 20% of Fairfax Media's earnings is not that the papers themselves are smaller in size and revenue, but that the company is much bigger and more diverse.

The advice that marketers must act accordingly in relation to declining paper circulation numbers is neither a logical extension of that statement nor at this time entirely correct in fact - most marketers will know that Australian print circulation and readership is still robust.
Editor | Scotland
  • Wrote on 16 Oct, at 04:53PM
Hey mikevn. While I would agree with you on the rather pedantic point of logical argument, let's look at the global facts and raise the relevant question again - is Australia really somehow insulated from a macro trend of declining newspaper circulations worldwide?
Right back at 'ya mikevn! I hate to be a bearer of gloomy news, but I just don't see newspapers occupying the same space in Australians' lives moving forward.
AdamJ
  • Wrote on 17 Oct, at 12:08PM
Scotland, without wishing to state the bleedin obvious, Australia is not America. And the Aussie newspaper market is not the Yankee one.

It's really important to take a longer-term view of newspaper circulations and readership in Australia rather than succumb to the sensationalist doom and gloom angle.

I would highly recommend registering for free on the excellent new Newspaper Works website, and then clicking on Market Information and feasting on the charts under Newspaper Marketplace, as in the URL below

http://www.thenewspaperworks.com.au/files/dmfile/NewspaperMarketInformationFullDeckJun08.ppt

As Mike from Fairfax rightly says, its still robust. Newspaper executives don't need to start taking busking lessons just yet ... (but it might be worth buying a guitar on eBay, just in case)

AdamJ
The Marketer
  • Wrote on 19 Oct, at 11:19AM
@ Scott, articulate as always!

@mikevn & @ AdamJ, I think Scott is eloquently highlighting a fact that is not registering with the common or garden traditional media person.

The rest of the world is moving on with new media channels and business models and sooner than later a big tsunami will hit Australia’s media shores.

In the US, Sen. Barack Obama recently beat major brands like Apple to be awarded the Advertising Ages marketer of the year for 2008. Mr. Obama won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National Advertisers annual conference.

Not for using TV, Radio or Print...no, for using social media channels to take him from unknown to presidential nominee and raising 100’s of millions of dollars on the way.

And third came another social media icon, Zappos.com.

Australia is not the US, but traditional Australian media cannot stick its head in the sand and hope for the best. Corporate’s are looking to reduce their advertising spend and big media empires are cutting staffing levels, so shouting aussie, aussie, aussie...oi, oi, oi, will not protect the aussie mass media industry.

As Jack Welch famously said: “Destroy your business...Change or Die” I think its time for newspapers to destroy their business model.

P.S. Any American’s reading this please vote for Obama!!!

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