Hyderabad, December 2
With a sale of 107 million newspapers daily, India is the biggest newspaper market in the world. Together with China and Japan, it accounts for over 60 per cent of the global newspaper sales.
“Despite endless predictions about the death of newspapers, they actually continue to grow, at least on global scale,” Timothy Balding, co-chief executive officer of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) said in his presentation at the ongoing 62nd World Newspaper Congress here.
Interestingly, the USA accounts for only 14 per cent of the total newspaper sales. Globally, 1.9 billion people read newspaper every day, which is 34 per cent of the world population, while 24 per cent use the Internet.
The WAN-IFRA survey showed that newspaper circulation grew, on a global scale, by 1.3 per cent in 2008 and almost 9 per cent over five years. “Newspapers continue to be global mass media to be reckoned with, achieving a reach of over 34 per cent,” Balding said.
The data shows consistent newspaper growth in Africa, Asia and South America, and a long-term slowdown in the US and European markets. “But there is no reason to believe that there is an apocalypse on us. A circulation drop in Europe is less than 3 per cent over five years. Over five years, according to our survey, newspaper circulation increased in 100 of the 182 nations,” he pointed out.
The advertising revenues fell an estimated 20 per cent in North America, 19 per cent in Eastern Europe, 16 per cent in Western Europe, and 11 per cent in the Asia Pacific in 2009, according to a survey done by PriceWaterCoopers.
The US newspaper market has been the hardest hit, with advertising revenues in the third quarter of 2009 falling nearly 29 per cent in print and nearly 17 per cent on digital platforms.
Balding said digital advertising revenue won’t be able to replace those lost to print, making the search for new business models, including paid-for online access for news, which is a pressing concern for the news publishing industry. He said 60 per cent of the digital advertising revenue was captured by two search engine companies alone — Google and Yahoo.
“In a $182-billion press advertising industry, digital revenues of newspapers accounted for less than $6 billion last year and they might grow to around $8.4 billion by 2013. At the same time, print advertising is expected to decline,” he said.
