Former WaPo chief warns of ruin when advertisers 'wake up' and pull out of Print Media
Former WaPo chief warns of ruin when advertisers 'wake
up' and pull out
BY PAUL BEDARD | OCTOBER 17, 2014 | 11:19 AM
A former executive editor of the Washington Post is warning
of a massive shake out in print journalism once advertisers “wake up” to the
reality that they are wasting money on newspaper and magazine advertising, not
digital, where their audience is.
Robert G. Kaiser wrote for the Brookings Institution that
print media, presumably including his former employer, is getting more than
they should from advertisers and it won’t last much longer.
“Americans spend about five percent of the time they
devote to media of all kinds to magazines and newspapers. But nearly 20 percent
of advertising dollars still go to print media. So print media today are
getting billions more than they probably deserve from advertisers,” he wrote.
“When those advertisers wake up, revenues will plummet
still further,” warned Kaiser, editor from 1991-1998.
Of course, the shift is already happening. “This explains
why even as newspaper revenues have plummeted, the ad revenue of Google has
leapt upward year after year — from $70 million in 2001 to an astonishing $50.6
billion in 2013. That is more than two times the combined advertising revenue
of every newspaper in America last year,” wrote Kaiser.
The result could be the end of some print outlets.
“The great institutions on which we have depended for
news of the world around us may not survive. These are painful words to write
for someone who spent 50 years as a reporter and editor at The Washington
Post,” he wrote.
Kaiser detailed the economic plight of print: The WaPo
lost $40 million last year, “Newsweek magazine failed, and Time magazine is
teetering.”
Many media, including the Post, he said can be saved by
billionaire benefactors, but not all.
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