{"id":211,"date":"2006-12-15T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-15T22:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgillin.com\/2006\/12\/marketers-react-to-newspaper-death-spiral-proposal.html"},"modified":"2006-12-15T15:38:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-15T22:38:00","slug":"marketers-react-to-newspaper-death-spiral-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/marketers-react-to-newspaper-death-spiral-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketers react to newspaper death-spiral proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

BtoB magazine published my monthly column under the provocative title \u201cNewspaper death spiral has begun<\/a>\u201d this week and linked to a 3,500-word manifesto<\/a> that I assembled to further argue my point. If you read this blog regularly, you\u2019ve already read the salient points, but the essay on the BtoB site packages everything up neatly. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve received a handful of e-mails from BtoB readers about the column and not a single one has disagreed with my position. Perhaps my argument isn\u2019t as far-fetched as it sounds. One writer asked whether I thought magazines were going to suffer the same fate as newspapers. My position on that is that magazines are a different issue entirely and it really depends on the type of magazine. High-end, lifestyle mags will be just fine (Cigar Aficionado<\/i>, Golf<\/i>, Travel & Leisure<\/i>). News magazines have been in trouble for a long time and I think their situation will worsen. Trade magazines will be a mixed bag. I expect very few computer magazines to survive, for example, but CFO <\/i>magazine or vertical journals in non-tech areas may see little change.<\/p>\n

The economic model of magazines is very different from that of newspapers. Newspapers have huge fixed costs for production and delivery and that’s why they’re so vulnerable. Once they cover their fixed costs, the margins are great, but if they ever become unprofitable, the whole model starts to fall apart. They don’t scale down very well. That’s why I believe the collapse of newspapers will be so rapid. Remember that in many markets, newspapers operate as essentially legal monopolies. If they can\u2019t make money operating from that position of strength, their situation is very dire indeed.
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Another writer asked about the prospects for community newspapers. In fact, I believe those publications have a bright future. My expanded essay refers to resurgence in community publishing enabled by cheaper production costs. Small-town and community newspapers are well positioned to take advantage of the trend toward more localized publishing. They are the least likely to be marginalized by online competition. <\/p>\n

In short, I think the rapid collapse scenario will be limited to metropolitan dailies. National papers will probably be okay and community papers could actually get stronger. But I\u2019d hate to be the Detroit Free Press<\/i> right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BtoB magazine published my monthly column under the provocative title \u201cNewspaper death spiral has begun\u201d this week and linked to a 3,500-word manifesto that I assembled to further argue my point. If you read this blog regularly, you\u2019ve already read … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-3p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}