The Rise of Web Over Print Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

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By: Matt Clark

Jonah Bloom wrote an interesting article in this week’s Crain’s New York Business about the proposed death of newspapers.

Bloom came to the defense of the newspaper industry, claiming that the industry is not dying, but do need to revamp their digital content and technology. I won’t go into the business model aspects of the piece, but here are some interesting statistics:

• A recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers study of news consumption found that 50% of online readers spend the same time with newspaper content as they used to
• 35% said they now spend more time with newspaper content

A lot of people (including myself) are pointing towards digital news as the true wave of the future for news and PR. John Bell with Ogilvy went as far as to claim that the PR pro’s mind should be 20% digital and only 10% media focused. I have to disagree with this. Perhaps we will be there one day, but that won’t be for a very long time. We still don’t have a way to measure digital tactics, so how will we convince our clients of the ROI to have them sign off on such a switch away from traditional media.

Yes, online clips can live forever, but print clips seem to have more impact. I’ve had clients in the past care more about print hits than online hits. Now this could be a case of uneducated clients, but they have to have reasons for it. Perhaps its because older decision makers (as themselves) have not yet invested into Web news 100% yet, and still feel safer with print pubs such as newspapers.

In his article, Bloom gives some stats to back up this theory and quiet some digital cheerleaders. Politico.com receives about 1.5 million unique visitors a day, but gets 60% of its revenue from its print edition. And although print advertising has dropped 9.4% in 2007, online advertising has really slowed down in the past quarter as well.

So what’s the point of my little rant? Online hits can have great value, but print hits still have a lot more credibility with everyday consumers and older crowds. Perhaps its because anyone can write anything on the web. Perhaps the newsstand still holds a conceptual definition of unbiased news and act as true source of validation. That’s why we scan print hits to send to our clients, over just sending them the web link.

I’m not abandoning my position on the importance of social media. But lets not be blind cheerleaders. Remember, people who know these stats and champion social media are early adapters. 95% of the general population (a stat I am happy to make up all on my own) has no clue what we in the biz are doing or talking about. Most people don’t tweet, and many don’t have a Facebook page. I know people who still don’t even have Internet.

So although social media, digital marketing and web-based news show promise to become the wave of the future, it’s not fully there just yet. It’s still in its infancy - so make sure to keep newspapers a priority on all media lists.