Newspapers. Difficult times?

I was talking to John (Jack) McGee yesterday of Irish Marketing Journal (IMJ) fame.

Now apart from the fact that Jack is a great guy, I have an affection for IMJ since it was started by my Dad as the house magazine for AFA Advertising. He called it 'Irish Marketing Journal' because he thought people might trust it and read it better than if it was called 'AFA Advertising news'. But another day.

(However, if you're looking for information on Irish Advertising go to to his adworld.ie)

Anyway, he mentioned that he had been talking to Liam Kavanagh CEO of The Irish Times whom I've met recently, about newspapers and their struggle with online. You've heard about the "immediate" decline of The New York Times I'm sure, for the past two years but no doubt, circulations are falling and directly in parallel, advertising revenues. 

Advertising money chases audience. So you sell less newspapers, you generate less advertising.

I love newspapers. Adore them, so I don't want to see anyone's demise + certainly not theirs.

Now it strikes me that traditional print organisations have been struggling because they simply reproduce or "reprint" their paper online. The problem with that is that it's free (and therefore bastardising offline revenues) and it's a cost without a revenue stream. So you do it because you think you should or in the hope of some banner ads.

Interesting too is that on Facebook, 12 of the 25 favoured newsfeeds had no offline presence ever and the 2nd highest rated news source after The BBC? The Huffington Post.

Interesting as well is that titles such as the very excellent 'Telegraph' are leaving news less prominent (although they've still news at their core) and becoming more of an 'entertainment' paper. News is costly to produce but cheap to view.

So I thought, if it was me, I would not simply re-publish the paper online as it is - because it's not capitalising the online capabilities. I'd use it as a shop.

So let's say, The Irish Independent has a story about the match on Saturday (click her to buy a ticket) or a music review (click her to download) or a new show (buy here) or a book launch (download an e book here) or any news story can be made interactive and generate revenue. Story about The Prime Minister making a statement (click here to download the full text) or Celebrity caught in compromising situation (click her to download the video). As well as generating cash it actually uses the online space far better and serves readers well.

It's doing exactly what the printed version can't.

Now those papers have huge and loyal readers who'll go to them online because they trust them. That's just the hook. The revenue then is in allowing them to go past the flat content and buy.

And the Ads? Make them interactive too and start selling results not space. A Suzuki Ad? Allow readers to click it for a brochure or to book a test drive and then charge Suzuki on that basis (cost-per-test-drive), not on a "here's hoping" flat rate space charge.

Or maybe stream them live? Hmmmm. (That's an Ad, sorry).