Newspaper execs weigh in on future
The Independent has a piece in which various newspaper executives talk about what they believe the future of newspapers is, including the guy in charge of free newspapers at Associated Press, the president of the World Association of Newspapers (the group that keeps complaining about how Google News is stealing their content) and the head of news at the BBC.
I think you’ll end up with some premium-branded newspapers, a bit like The Sunday Times has done with its £2 price, which will be far more niche-orientated. The ones that have got a clear definition as to what their market is are the ones that will survive (Steve Auckland, Associated Newspapers, head of free newspapers division)
Definitely for the short to medium term they are still around. But if I was running a newspaper what I would be worried about was how you actually make money. You might migrate a lot of your information and your audience to the web, but how do you make money out of it? ( Helen Boaden, Head of news, BBC)
I don’t think new technology is a threat but an opportunity. My sense is that newspapers will continue to exist [but] the forms are still being experimented with, the ones that are going to work out long-term. ( Nathan Stoll, Global head of Google News)
The piece is full of some other great quotes, including this one from Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror: “Every newspaper has a great future online. End of story. Within five years every newspaper will be free and they’ll all be online. And if they’re not, they should be. There will still be a presence in print but that will be for older readers and you will find that anybody under the age of 35 will only read newspapers online.”
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