News Corp closes over 100 print papers, with 14 titles to disappear completely
Over 100 of News Corp’s regional and community titles will no longer produce print editions and instead move to digital-only formats. In addition, 14 titles will cease to exist.
There are reports this amounts to over 500 job losses.
The restructure comes after talks with Australian Community Media’s (ACM) Antony Catalano to buy some of News Corp’s papers fell over.
It’s all good for Mosman, Wentworth, and North Shore residents…
Real estate ad revenue is their only savior.
Real estate has been their ONLY meaningful source of revenue since Jesus played fullback for Jerusalem. The back of the paper always paid for the front. Ironically all the real estates revenue goes to Realestate.com.au, which conveniently doesn’t count towards local paper revenues but still drives News Corp’s market cap…. Just remember it is Google and Facebook’s fault …. (Sarcasm intended)
Well it is because digital ad revenue is peanuts as Google/FB take up the great majority of the share for simply being content distributors.
Sure real estate going digital had an impact, but this is kind of mitigated with News Corp having majority share of REA and Nine/Fairfax having majority share of Domain.
Rubbish. Real estate revenues end up in Realestate.com.au and Domain. Auto ends up in Carsales. Jobs ends up in Seek.
Google/FB largely came from the Yellow Pages. Sensis did $1.7Bn in revenue at its peak in 2005 (~$2.4bn in todays numbers), and that’s gone to Google/FB. The other classifieds revenue didn’t go from News to Google/FB, it went from news to Online Classifieds. Seek, Carsales and REA did <$100M in revenue in 2005 and now account for +$1.5bn combined. . This is included in the ACCC report, but is conveniently absent in any discussion of the report subsequently by news organisations (and to be honest the ACCC themselves).
Yes it’s true to say classified revenues have gone from Newspapers to the various online classified sites. But general advertising revenue has gone from the big media companies to FB and Google. If you’re a business trying to build brand awareness or sales leads or sales, it’s far cheaper and more effective to spend your ad dollars with FB and Google than with the old media brands, either in digital or print.
Yes, obviously real estate revenue has shifted away from newspapers. But the rivers of gold dried up over ten years ago; if this really was the death knell for print media it would have shut down years ago. It survived because media companies adapted to other forms of revenue, i.e. digital.
However it faces a slow death as the value of digital is cheapened by how a majority of ad spend goes to Google and Facebook first. While real estate ads on the backs of print will never come back, the way digital profits are fairly distributed can be regulated.
I also note that you observe the increased wealth of online classifieds but fail to compare it to Google/FB, which would be astronomically higher in comparison.
Commenting just so I can +1 the name (Dobalina, Bob Dobalina) and the comment
Titles in those areas are obviously better supported by advertisers.
RIP Byron Shire News letters to the editor…an underrated comedic genius of Australian newspapers
Great move!
Sad for people who lost their job but if your full time job in 2020 is print then you saw it coming.
Hopefully they invest more now into engineering teams to make their assets competitive.
Now if only Sky and News Crap titles like The Aus and the Daily Terror could go, we could celebrate for the good of democracy.
If News Corp realised the vast majority of people won’t pay for local news online – and really don’t want to sign up for a subscription for the Daily Tele etc in order to access it.
Local news is a really valuable tool, if they don’t find a way to provide ready access to it this is a massive blow to democracy, and we could see the rise of some very, very malign forces in local government in the austere times ahead.
I hope they see their way to creating separate sites for these titles with logins not dependent on the metro mastheads…otherwise they will die a very quick and painful death.
If they created a separate login just for the local news site – would you, and others in the public pay for it?
I really dont think the issue is having to have a combined daily tele subscription. You hit the nail on the head in your opening line – the vast majority of people won’t pay for local news online.
So separate login or not, the fact is there are nowhere near enough paying customers or advertisers for this product. Hence, the business makes a loss and eventually the owner gets sick of losing money and shuts it down.
Dont really see this as a blow to democracy. No one is forcing anyone to do anything.. people are actually exercising their free will NOT to pay money for this. So they’ve exercised their democratic right and now the businesses of yesteryear fold.
An enlightening piece in the Guardian today which spells out that when News Corp says these local and regional titles will become “digital only” , it does not mean they will have their own website. Rather, they will be embedded somewhere within the relevant metro masthead site (Daily Tele, Herald Sun etc). In the highly unlikely event significant numbers are prepared to pay for local news, they will be helping to prop up the metro masthead numbers.
So rather than “digital only”, a better description would be “digital…barely”.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2020/may/29/news-corp-carnage-fine-print-reveals-even-greater-hit-to-local-journalism
A truly sad day for our democracy
This is only bearing out Rupert’s predictions of about 12 years ago that the era of print would be over by 2020. COVID-19 provided the perfect cover to take the axe to the dead wood, but will under-staffed digital really be able to replace the content produced by local newsrooms? As an aside it would be interesting to know what the circulations of the axed local and regional papers were immediately before the pandemic struck. But News Corp isn’t likely to make those figures available.
“News Corp said it had undertaken a comprehensive review of its assets and observed consumers shifting to online news sources.” I wonder how much they paid Deloitte for that nugget.
This is gold
At $500 per hour no doubt a lot.
So many advertising agencies lamenting the loss of these titles and jobs but how many considered leader titles or regional print as part of their strategies? How many gave these titles the time of day or made a booking? If you didn’t support then don’t be surprised when it’s too late!?
Regional print was largely clinging to life through the weekly Wesfarmers and Woolies Group ROP stuff, which was all slashed dramatically a few years ago.
Agreed. If said agencies actually cared about delivering calibrated, high-impact campaigns, rather than just making as much profit as they could, there would have been a lot more advertising placed in these titles. If your product or service could be purchased by said audiences, there was superior bang for buck in advertising in this way.
The demand for local news is there. Research shows that about 505 of Australians turn to their community newspaper (and no it is not just the old people). During COVID-19 local community became even more important and I believe the need for a local newspaper will grow in the future.
No people are not going to pay to access it online, I dare say not many people thought their locals were owned by Murdoch.
So the need was there why didn’t they survive? I think News did not get the sales story right.
Yes News.Ltd needs to save some money why not look at getting rid of The Austraian?? We know why that will never be shut down.
Mind you the Aus is probably a very profitable operation now due to their subscriber base.
Much less reliant on ads.
If anyone thinks that print pubs can rely on subscriber fees to allow them to survive, they have no idea about the biz I would suggest …
I’ve been publishing regional tabloid newspapers in competition with a major regional Newscorp paper on the NSW Central Coast for 20 years, and we have continued to grow, not wither, despite not being support by most major businesses and organisations with advertising.
The difference is content. If you give local newspaper readers local unbiased news and keep a watch on council and political activities, they remain loyal, and local advertisers come with that. There is a great deal of love at the community level for our central coast newspapers. We started with one 12 page newsletter once a month and now we publish two weekly and one fortnightly tabloid paper with a minimum of 32 pages in full colour.
Free distribution in large numbers making papers as accessable as possible is also the key. The same model will work any where in Australia and moving to digital only will be the death of any paper.
Well done on your publication Cec, I’m wondering if you’re willing to comment on a public forum how you’ve made things sustainable/profitable and grow, how do you fund your local content, print distribution, pay the journo’s and keep the office lights on when the money doesn’t come from major advertisers or subscriber revenue? I hope you continue to thrive.
News Corp has had an identity crisis for years now. On the one hand their editorial policy fought relentlessly against the big tech duopoly and championed the value of their mastheads, yet on the other hand sales staff were told relentlessly to forget print and just sell News Xtend. They pinned their future on becoming a reseller of Facebook and Google which only hastened the decline of strong news brands- pushing the products of the very same companies that destroyed their business model and trying to move into the agency space. It was a very confusing message to take to clients.
So let me get this right, the reason why Community and Regional papers are shutting down is because of Google & Facebook?
Correct me if I’m wrong but if they don’t distribute through these channels and pump a lot of cash into SEO then how many people actually come to their News sites organically?
It is disappointing to see print becoming less and less relevant in this day and age, maybe updating printing presses made in the 50’s could have been a good starting point…….. back in the 90’s
Not to mention the titles they’ve already killed, including the Manly Daily: in 2018 reduced from 5 to 2 print issues a week (made sense), then only distributed in suburb “main streets”, cut out major component of local news (both moves killed desire to bother seeking a copy), and then earlier this year, made digital version only available via Daily Tele subscription. Total lack of understanding of local media.
Sadly (for all of those who will lose their jobs) inevitable given the deteriorating economics of print and particularly local /regional print. Unfortunately, I can’t see how these titles will succeed as digital titles. Even moreso than print, digital publishing is all about volume – you need very large volumes of readers/traffic to make meaningful revenues from both advertising and subscriptions. And local publications are, by definition, small. They simply will not be able to achieve the volumes needed to drive significant revenue.
Indeed. Which is why this move is the death knell for all of these papers. Digital simply won’t be viable, for the reasons you mention.
This is concerning on a number of levels. There will be no obvious training ground for young journalists now. Local papers with experienced editors instilled a range of valuable skills.
Local councils will become pretty much unaccountable. They will present their own media with their own favourable slant on that. It seems likely, too, that developers will find it easier to slip applications through without papers advertising them to the wider community.
Local papers create and applaud local heroes. They report on local sport, arts and entertainment. They provide reviews of local restaurants. During elections they give unbiased (hopefully) insights into all candidates and, afterwards, hold the victors to account. They can help support campaigns and shine lights into dark local corners.
I’m delighted to see that post by Cec Bucello and very much hope Mumbrella will give him room to talk about what he’s done and how he’s done it.
Fully endorse all your points. Northern Beaches Council has already ceased advertising DAs. Along with elected Councillors no longer having any input on DAs, this has very swiftly and effectively executed NSW Govt policy by dealing all the ‘sheep’ affected by oversized development out of the picture and handing the process to the development ‘wolves’.
Would you all be rejoicing if this was Fairfax or the ABC? These journos losing their jobs today have families to support. It’s very sad, especially for people who have sweated blood to bring community news to their readers. This schadenfreude and vitriol is unbelievable.
The monopoly is gone… They should be celebrating! The shackles of one voice for the country has now opened up a huge gaping hole for local communities to buy the presses second hand and make community titles! Or do you want Murdoch telling every single person what to think?
This was absolutely necessary. Yes, everyone loves a good Murdoch media bash but wholeheartedly agree with a shake up required.
And if Fairfax reinvigorate those abandoned titles with a more balanced, 2020 slant… there’s those jobs back and all the better!
It’s awful but no doubt the execs are still lining their pockets
….Am I sad, or surprised…. Nope! Yes, I feel for all of the hard working ‘toggies and reporters and ad staff that worked tirelessly on these community papers….They are the ones who have to suffer….The fat cat just gets fatter…the mice? not so!
Sad for colleagues still hanging on by a thread. Get out now boys and girls.. I saw the writing on the wall 6 years ago…
Too many fine people shafted!!
The loss of hard copy newspapers means reduced scrutiny in regional and local areas – but also a point of connection – particularly for local events.
Nah – this is all about “force feeding” the struggling metro print titles and aggregating the digital audience under a single umbrella whilst taking advantage of the Federal Government’s digital transformation grants. The passive reader – the one that flips through the entire print edition just because it’s there – will disappear entirely and local news, the parish pump as it was known, will be a thing of the past. The audience will fragment further and be less responsive which will force more cuts and less focussed journalism and the cycle will continue…
Will there be a solemn ceremony to commemorate every 15 year old kid who dumped their paper route’s bundles of the local community rag down at the nearby creek?
No thought for elderly orhouseholds that have no internet access
I would argue internet is empowerment…. If old people don’t have that they are are trying to hold onto the past and their relatives should be helping them because it’s a massive issue not being able to do things remotely as it’s safer to be at home for them.
Will News continue with “We’re for you”?
This is hardly surprising news, the APN Business has been asleep at the wheel for years gauging clients for classifieds revenue with no regard for return on investment for the advertiser.
COVID only accelerated what should have happened years ago. @Deloitte should do a full scale review of the classifieds business operations in Brisbane. It’s a reactive, chaotic mess – which is a true reflection on the current print based leadership. Seriously, no-one in their right mind could justify, or provide a strategic recommendation to keep the existing leadership team. They can’t spell digital let alone lead it.
These latest changes are simply rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. @RupertMurdoch @LachlanMurdoch to be digital you need to have digital first leaders, with runs on the board, do you really want to risk it? From a governance and risk perspective, I’d also question why jobs are not spilled to test the external candidate market – surely as a public listed company you are bound to your shareholders..? It is very unusual to see the promotion of unskilled people to senior management roles. This is not jobs for the boys it’s jobs for family and friends. That’s the real reason the business has run itself in to the ground. Fix it or have nothing left.
Truth be told…if more people were reading the news in a print format, advertisers would have kept up their support for these papers. A viscous cycle, where papers needed to retain at least 50% market share in order to be the most cost-effective ad buy. As advertisers left, so did revenues that paid for that news coverage. As the staff cuts increased, the quality of the news coverage decreased. Readers looked to other sources for their news. And so it goes. Will be curious to see how the major retailers divvy up their ad dollars now.
The 100+ local and regional papers print editions will be missed by older Australians aged 60+ years given nearly 1.5M have read a local paper in the past 7 days*. We can only hope that the digital versions are made freely available and are easy to navigate to make it simple for all, but especially older Australians to access (there are still 25% of Australians aged 75+ years who have NOT accessed the internet in the past 7 days*. We must not neglect this vulnerable cohort as they need access to information and ‘our client’s ads’.
We are still able to reach most mature consumers on a local level via alternative channels such as highly targeted local digital campaigns, geo-targeted Facebook and letterbox to name a few. There are also the specialist seniors publications and websites published by key organisations such as National Seniors and Seniors Card which also provide a rich environment for connecting with the mature consumer.
Let’s hope innovation comes out of this challenging situation, perhaps local councils can become more proactive with local news content and sectors like healthcare, aged care and retirement look for alliances.
*Roy Morgan 2020
I worked at News for a decade as a innovator and they didn’t invest in technology leaders who understood how to distribute communication nor did they now. They put the Journalists on a pedestal like super hero’s and they all yell each other how good they are whilst the social tech leaders destroy an industry that had such promise.
Did you know that NewsCorp boosted their circulation figures by dropping 100,000s of papers at Schools for free daily to increase their Ad Cost? Love to see an investigation over that! McDonalds, Suncorp, Comm Bank, those guys got owned! The entire company is corrupt!
Good, I hope they go broke, they actively damage society with their right-wing rubbish.