Newspaper Circulation Crashes In US

A story in today's Wall Street Journal shows circulation at many of the largest U.S. newspapers slid sharply during the six months ended in September.

Weekday circulation for 379 dailies was down 10.6% over the same time the previous year. The sharpest falloff in a decade.

Where Are The Eyeballs Going?

The web obviously. I get most of my news these days from Google, and from Netvibes, and IGoogle. And of course Google Alerts on different subjects of interest.

And where does most of this content I cherish leak from?  Newspapers of course. And to a lesser degree to bloggers such as moi. While bloggers may have superior views missed by main-stream media, we don't necessarily have the scope of expertise, or time to offer in-depth reviews of issues of importance such as the decline of the US dollar, for example--which newspapers and specialty magazines can and presumably should offer.

So newspapers it seems to me are going to have to make a choice.

Newspapers Must Choose

Newspapers have to figure-out what they want to be when they grow-up.

Newspapers are trying to stave-off their dinosaur deaths by offering on-line 'newspapers' which rapidly change content, in a sense competing against their print versions. If for example a plane falls out of the sky, the newspaper on-line version should have constant updates during the day, and over-night meaning the print version is already 'beaten' by the time it lands on your door-step.

So why buy print?

Especially if the content is then sent to AP or Reuters? Which appears online at Google. Hmmm,

Profit From Content

• First thing...newspapers need to create new content all the time, and then charge good bucks for original stuff to companies like AP and Reuters. 
• Second, newspapers have got to integrate their web and paper-based operations more closely together from a revenue as well as content perspective. 
• Third, newspapers have got to make deals with local TV stations to embed video on their websites.

And with all this 'free' content online, newspapers are going to have to stop charging for access to their Websites. I mean really, what is the point of paying for an online subscription to the Wall Street Journal just to read about the newspaper circulation topic? Unless I am convinced I can only get information from that particular paper, I just don't see the point. 

Maybe I am wrong on that? 

And of course, the real point is what are the advertisers going to do, as newspapers are losing audience?

How low can ad rates go?