Would the Death of News Printing Benefit Commercial Printers?

[annesgreat]

Maybe it's not pretty, but we do have to prepare to pick up the slack. Read my post on the subject here. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Cory Smith]

Why not just post the post right here?

 

[rbailleu]

I think news papers would survive if they would charge more for there printing services. they are so used to doing design work for ads for free they don't know when to charge for it. around here they are tough competitors. I we would be much better off if they all went out of business.

 

[jschrieber]

"Experts" said television was going to bury radio. "Experts" also said VCR's were going to kill movie theaters. But radio and theaters are still around .... they're different than they once were (remember music on AM?) .... but still in business.

You adapt .... or you die.

Our website gets more views than any other local site by a LARGE margin, and our web ad revenues continue to grow each month.

There are still plenty of subscribers who want to be more informed than just a headline twice a day for 30 minutes (less 12 minutes or more of commercials!) gives them .... and many radio stations would have NO local news to broadcast if it weren't for their local newspaper.

As for ad services, we do little of that now. Most advertisers create their own and supply completed material (notice I didn't say "print ready"!) .... we do a lot of tweaking of ads from "Joe's Garage and Ad Services", but not so much start to finish.

We'll definitely look differently 5 or 10 years from now .... but so will the internet .... remember when Netscape had a corner on the browser market and making money hand over fist? .... who's to say Craig's List might not be just a memory in a few years.

We're fighting battles on two fronts here .... the trend away from paper to electronic .... and the economy.

We're adapting to the former .... our paper should be available for Kindle2 and others very shortly. And considering the price of newsprint, that might be to our benefit in the long run.

As for the latter .... we're hoping and praying things turn around soon, just like everyone else is.

So don't be TOO quick to bury us .... it's not pretty right now .... but no one here is reaching for the defibrillator QUITE yet.

jack

 

[Liao Jacob]

i think the death of the news printing will Benefit the whole Commercial Printers, the new one is never brought in until the old one is death, that is the general rule of the world....

 

[rbailleu]

jschrieber,

I am sure your company does a fine job at reporting, and I believe newspapers will survive as online information companies, but the need to get out of actually printing a paper is coming. I have no arguement with reporting, only fight to the bottom pricing which hurts everyone

 

[jschrieber]

I'm sure the number of printed copies will diminish over time, but hopefully subscriptions to our eEdition will increase proportionately. (I have to believe there will still be those who don't wish to carry laptops into the bathroom with themselves.)

And please don't lose site of the fact that the number of inserts we deliver in our products each week has grown significantly in the last 10 years or so .... my best guess is those are printed by some of the very entities who appear here to be salivating over our purported demise!

I don't follow that line of thinking, especially since most of those inserts are available online as well.
j

 

[Kostagh]

I'm in printing business since the end of the '70's. Ever since 1980, I've been hearing this mumbo-jumbo about the disappearence of newspapers. I am confident that we'll still have newspapers a long time since now. Why?! It's easy! As an information support, the newspaper needs minimal knowledge (below average reading abilities will suffise) and practically nothing else (eyes and minimal light conditions). Also, the cost of getting that information is often zero (there are lots of advertising-financed free newspapers).
On the other hand, electronic devices need such an electronic device (may it be a TV set, a computer, a PDA, a mobile phone), with adequate energy supply and corresponding communications network. Also, most probably a subscription with a service provider or a pay-per-view agreement should exist. And last, but not least, one has to have the adequate technological abilities to operate such devices (often much more intricate than one would desire). This is why I'm confident that newspapers will live!