Global Newspaper Industry Shows Good Growth
Newspaper circulation is growing and new newspapers are being launched at a remarkable rate, according to new data from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).
Timothy Balding, CEO of the Paris-based WAN, said: “What we are seeing completely contradicts the conventional wisdom that newspapers are in terminal decline.
“Newspapers are doing far better than commonly believed. In fact, the figures confirm that the industry is healthy and vigorous and is successfully dealing with increasing competition from other media. The fashion of predicting the death of newspapers should be exposed for what it is nothing more than a fashion, based on common assumptions that are belied by the facts.”
The new figures are contained in an a update released today of WAN’s annual statistical compendium of the newspaper industry, World Press Trends.
Globally, combined paid-for and free newspaper circulation increased 9.9% over five years, and 2.3% over one year, in 2005, the most recent period for which full-year figures are available.
North America showed a five-year circulation increase of 0.7% and was virtually stable over one year. Europe showed a 2.1% increase over five years and a one-year increase of 4.1%.
The total number of paid-for daily newspaper titles worldwide jumped over the 10,000 mark for the first time ever, to 10,104, a 13% growth from 2001, when there were 8,930 titles.
Free daily newspaper circulation more than doubled from 2001 to 2005, from 12 million copies in 2001 to 28 million in 2005, an increase of 137%.
In Europe, combined paid-for and free newspaper circulation increased 14.2% in the five years to 2005, and 3.3% over one year. The number of new titles grew 15.8% over five years, and were stable over one year.
In North America, newspaper circulation increased 0.7% over five years, and marginally declined 0.04% over one year. The number of titles declined 0.8% over five years but increased 1.% over one year.
Balding said: “The figures show that there has been a quiet revolution in the number of daily launches. This burgeoning growth of daily titles worldwide has largely gone unnoticed by market makers and media pundits obsessed with the digital media revolution. Meanwhile the real-world growth of newspaper titles and circulations continues inexorably.
“These trends also indicate the widespread, but often overlooked, innovation that is occurring in the newspaper industry. While much attention has been focused on digital development, the print product is also changing.
“Even in the most developed markets, there has been a proliferation of new genres of newspapers, targeting new audience segments and generating creative marketing and distribution scenarios. And the surge of new, free titles thrust into the paid-for market is the result of many publishers rethinking the cover-price revenue model in place for more than 400 years.”
Recent research from Nielsen//NetRating showed that web traffic to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers in the US grew 210% year over year in December (see Online Traffic To US Newspaper Blog Pages Increases).