FEBRUARY 20 2009 BANDT.COM.AU 19

It feels like the Australian newspaper industry is having something of a MarkTwain moment at present – the reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.Media commentators are observing the carnage now taking place in theAmerican newspaper industry and jumping to the wrong conclusion that it isArmageddon time for newspapers here.

Marketing guru Seth Godin recently blogged: “When newspapers are gone,what will you miss?” In private correspondence with me he admitted that as areader, he enjoyed newspapers and considered them to be excellent value – butas a marketing guru, he didn’t think much of their business model. So I askedhim, from a marketing perspective, what one key thing could American newspa-pers do to improve their chances of survival? His reply: “Realise that they arenot in the newsprint business, and use technology to build a new enterprise, notprop up an old one.”

My ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch, would seem to agree going by his recentBoyer Lecture. He said: “Our real business isn't printing on dead trees. It's givingour readers great journalism and great judgment … we are moving from newspapers to news brands”.

It’s not time to write the newspapers’ obituary in Australia just yet, andhere’s why. In a statement of the bleeding obvious, Australia is not America. Thenewspaper market in the United States is different to the one here. And thefinancial crisis gripping many publishers there is due to a number of reasons:

Big debts – US publishers have borrowed far too much for far too long toinvest in the purchase of other media assets.

Big promises – the hammering of US share prices as publishers have failedto deliver to investors the unrealistic growth rates they promised.

Big migration – the migration of US classified ads (jobs, homes, cars) fromprint to the internet, plus the effect of Craigslist, which has been worsened bythe economic crisis.

Big mistake – a lack of investment and innovation when it comes to brand-building, and relating to both consumer and trade brands.

As every farmer knows, you reap what you sow – the basic principle of landmanagement also applies to brand management. Earl Wilkinson, executivedirector of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA), theleading newspaper organisation in the US, is an avid watcher of newspapers

BIG TALK

Adam Joseph, Insights manager,Herald Sun (Melbourne)

OZ NEWSPAPERS WAVING, NOT DROWNINGWhen the mighty Tribune Company in the US went into liquidation at Christmas the shudders were understandably felt across the globe,but the subsequent obituaries written for newspapers Down Under are way out of line, writes the Herald Sun’s Adam Joseph.

around the world. Accordingto him: “Americannewspapers suffer frommassive perceptualdeficiencies among readersand advertisers that I don'tsee in other countries. That'sbecause they didn't invest inbrand-building when timeswere good.”

Let’s touch back down inAustralia now, in terms ofthe four key pointsmentioned earlier for USnewspapers. Debt leveraginghere is generally moremanageable for publishers.Revenue promises have

generally been more realistic. Classified migration has been slower and has notbeen going on for so long. And most importantly, major Australian newspaperpublishers have invested harder and for longer into our physical and onlinemasthead brands.

Australian publishers have worked hard to develop their core products –their physical newspapers – by upgrading print presses to provide more colourand by introducing new sections and inserted magazines. And the result is somegreat newspapers in each state which are finely attuned to their readership,hence delivering strong audience connection and a bond of trust. This is all verygood news for display advertising revenues, which tend to get overlooked as thefocus is so often only on classifieds.

Commentators suggest that classified advertising, the fabled Rivers of Gold– are slowly turning into Billabongs of Bronze. The truth is that many classifiedsare indeed moving online but what they fail to mention is that newspapersremain highly relevant to Australian seekers.

In a recent Roy Morgan survey, 45% of Australians said newspapers were themost useful media for finding a job – compared with 35% for the internet. Forhome buyers, 47% said newspapers were the most useful media compared with34% for the internet. With cars, the figures are almost neck and neck.

So please bear all this in mind each time the newspaper industry gets itsquarterly dose of ABC circulation and Roy Morgan readership figures.

I anticipate that some media commentators will take low single-digit annualdeclines to mean the industry here is haemorrhaging from a main artery. But ifyou take a longer-term view, newspaper circulations are holding up relativelywell over time. Check out the Newspaper Works website for proof.

While readership may be down a bit over time, show me one mass mediumthat hasn’t suffered from audience fragmentation – like free TV. The newspaperindustry might be sneezing a bit, but we’re not dead just yet.

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ILLUSTRATION BYSCOTT BRITTON

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