WAN-IFRA: Digital advertising revenues will not replace print

Digital advertising revenues will not replace lost print revenues anytime soon, according to the annual world press trends update from World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

This absence of online ad revenues makes the search for new business models, ­ including paid-for online access for news, ­ a pressing concern for the news publishing industry, said WAN-IFRA.

In a $182 billion press advertising industry, digital revenues of newspapers accounted for less than $6 billion last year and are forecast by PricewaterhouseCoopers to grow to no more than $8.4 billion by 2013.

At the same time, print advertising is expected to decline. PwC predicts that by 2013, combined print and digital ad revenues will be less than print-only ad revenues were in 2008.

Timothy Balding, co-CEO of WAN-IFRA, said: “These PwC forecasts, similar to those made by ZenithOptimedia and others, demonstrate quite simply that at no time soon will digital advertising revenues come close to achieving the sort of revenues required, by many, to compensate for falling print revenue.

“So that answer will have to be found elsewhere. Should these forecasts come close to being true, new business models will have to be invented.

“If newspaper companies wish to maintain their strong content leadership, someone is going to have to pay. It looks like we have to solve the digital payment issue ­ and soon.”

However, presenting the update at today’s World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Hyderabad, India, Balding said that the global newspaper industry is performing well overall.

“Despite the endless predictions about the death of newspapers, they actually continue to grow, at least on a global scale,” he said.

The WAN-IFRA survey showed that global newspaper circulations grew by 1.3% in 2008, the last full year for which data exists, and almost 9% over five years.

“You might say that this growth is taking place in the developing markets and masks a continued downward trend in the developed world. And to a degree this is true, but it is not the whole story, as newspaper companies in the ‘old’ markets have embraced digital platforms and new forms of print publishing and, in doing so, have actually grown their audience reach and revenues, even while their print circulations have come under pressure,” Balding added.