The impact of web traffic on revenues of traditional newspaper publishers 15 Guardian, a quality daily newspaper, marginally increased its circulation between 2012 and 2013. UK readership statistics, which measure how many adults read each issue, have fallen by 13% across the news spectrum in 2013-2014. Results from the London Evening Standard, a free regional daily whose 16 readership rose by 27% in the same period, show that there remain exceptions. Figure 3: Print circulation trends in the UK, 2000-2014 4 )s3.5 onlli3 Mi (2.5 on 2 atiul cr1.5 Ci 1 0.5 0 7 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 00 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 2 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 The Sun Daily Mail Daily Mirror The Guardian The Daily Telegraph Source: UK Audit Bureau of Circulations Print circulation has declined amidst the growth of alternative news sources. New media have been emerging, innovating, and becoming affordable for the average reader. Regular and cable television channels have introduced more news providers and the emergence of the 24-hours news cycle has accelerated the rate at which people learn about what is happening around them. Decreasing barriers to entry and syndication deals have made local news viable and formed competitors to regional and local newspapers. The Internet continued this trend by scaling 24-hour news coverage across regions and countries. At the same time, the Internet offers newspaper publishers the ability to reach a global audience. In the past, publishers’ reach was limited to the geography and periodicity of their circulation. In the online world, news can be published to readers at any time of the day and accessed by people around the globe. The Internet provides leverage particularly to newspapers published in languages with large speaking bases such as English and Spanish. For example, nearly 180,000 daily subscribers and point-of-sale buyers in the UK read the print version of the British newspaper The Guardian in 2014. Its online version attracted 90m unique visitors per month with more than 23m coming from the United 17,18 States and 4m from Australia. In October 2013, Mail Online, the web edition of the British Daily Mail tabloid, was read by more than 146m unique readers and this readership is more than two times higher 19 than the entire population of Mail Online’s domestic market. 2.3 Print revenues are falling The falling print circulation is affecting the publishers’ financial positions. The business model of print journalism relies on the combination of advertising and circulation streams, which are composed of recurring subscriptions and sales to end customers. The contribution of each stream to the news organisation’s bottom-line varies based on publication. Quality publications typically favour higher prices, while tabloids may focus on audience acquisition through lower prices and more space devoted to ads. 15 Enders Analysis (2014), ‘Newspaper advertising: Temporary reprieve.’ 16 The Media Briefings (2014): ‘UK newspaper readership falls twice as fast as circulation’. Retrieved from ‘http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/newspaper-publishers-nrs-abc-circulation-readership-digital-june-2014 17 The Guardian (2014): ‘ABCs: National daily newspaper circulation August 2014’. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/media/table/2014/sep/05/abcs-national-newspapers 18 Journailsm.co.uk (2014), ‘The paywall horse has bolted for us’. Retrieved from: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/guardian-ceo-the-paywall-horse-has-bolted-for-us/s2/a556033 19 Press Gazette (2013), ‘Metro and Mirror double online readership as Mail Online hits record 146m monthly browsers’. Retrieved from: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/metro-and-mirror-double-online-readership-mail-online- hits-record-146m-monthly-browsers Deloitte LLP. 8