Eyre: Expect first nationals to close within 18 months

In a wide-ranging address on the future media landscape, Richard Eyre (a director of Guardian Media Group) painted a gloomy picture for the future of print at yesterday’s Annual ISBA conference in London.

“Inside 18 months, the first titles will become online only.” This will include some nationals, Eyre added. “Newspapers are kidding themselves if they think their brand names are enough, today the idea is more important than the brand.”

Regionals would be the first to go, Eyre believed, pointing to Trinity Mirror’s reported 42% decline in regional advertising revenue (2008 v 2007). “A high proportion of regional display revenues won’t come back… and classifieds just work better online.”

Eyre highlighted the Sony Reader and the Kindle as potentially changing the way we will read, and certainly the way our children will read.

“The paper newspaper is in the long term a goner,” he said.

ISBA delegates – many of whom arrived with newspapers under their arms – will presumably be voting with their advertising budgets on this one.