Newspapers are dead, long live newspaper publishers

Ever since the latest ABC figures came out a week or so ago I have been reading, mostly in newspapers, a lot of hand-wringing commentaries about how sales of newspapers here in South Africa and abroad are generally in decline.

No time

Two reasons are given for the SA scenario. One is the fact that print media is matching the growth slowdown in gross domestic product. And secondly, it has long been anticipated that declines will take place due to a combination of an increased Internet usage and the fact that consumers simply don't have as much time to read newspapers as they did before.

But, little has been said about what newspaper publishers are doing about it. Well, one thing is for sure, they are not sitting about twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the final axe to fall.

Plan B

In fact, for some time now they have been very active in terms of ensuring that if and when newspapers do fall out of favour to the point of economic non-viability, that they have a Plan B.

Certainly, when South Africa eventually gets proper broadband and not the painfully slow stuff Telkom is offering right now, newspapers will become even harder hit.

Plan B is, of course, beneficiation of core business. Many newsrooms are already being re-engineered into becoming content providers offering their news collection and co-ordination skills to all sorts of other media.

Diversified

Many of them have already diversified in other media, particularly online publishing, and have put so much effort into it that some of the most fascinating websites today belong to newspapers.

In fact, the whole business of adding value to their core business has moved ahead so far that if one looks at Naspers for example, the “pers” part of its name is now a complete misnomer in terms of the way it is heading. It should be called “Naswebmobiletvenbaieandergoedasookoerante.”

Johncom has also put a lot of effort into adding value to its core business, offering subediting services to far-flung countries and getting involved in everything from book retail to cinema and television. Sunday Times has also launched a virtual newspaper website similar to the ground-breaking online publishing side of the New York Times.

Independent Newspapers' online activities are also going gangbusters.

Media centres

There is no question that South Africa's newspaper industry is very much aware of the possibility of a rapid decline in traditional newspaper sales once real broadband becomes available and metropolitan and rural “media centres” make the Internet available to all sections of the population to the degree of penetration of the cellphone industry.

They are girding their loins to use decades of news gathering and presentation skills to meet in an increasing and not decreasing market for information and news. And the beauty of online is that the entertainment factor that the modern consumer is demanding alongside news of the day is just so much easier to get across online than it is in newsprint.

Ahead of broadcasters

Frankly, when it comes to thinking about the future, the country's newspaper industry seems to be way ahead of its broadcast counterparts, particularly the SABC . The question about what happens when newspaper sales decline has already been answered.

What the SABC, for example, hasn't seemed to have answered yet is what it is going to do with television and the whole question of video on demand that is as inevitable as death and taxes.

Certainly it has made some headway in terms of looking tentatively as branded television and product placement in view of research showing that the 30-second commercial is already on its deathbed, with viewer interest in commercial breaks waning faster than the former deputy minister of health's bank balance.

But, what about programming? Will TV channels remain as they are presenting scheduled fare? Or, will that all become irrelevant as consumers decide what they want to watch and when and where?