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The Economics of Newspapers

From the Committed Sardine Blog:

The Economics of Newspapers:

Google’s Chief Economist: “Newspapers Have Never Made Much Money From News”

The blog reports some highlights from a presentation by Hal Varian:

“About 40% of internet users say read news on the Web every day.

Time spent on online news sites is only about 70 seconds per day, compared to 25 minutes spent reading a print edition.

Online news readers tend to read at work, not for leisure, so they don’t have much time to stick around and are thus worth less to advertisers.

Overall, less than 5 percent of newspaper ad revenues come from the online editions.

Search engines account for 35 to 40 percent of “traffic to major U.S. news sites,” according to comScore.

The cost of printing and distributing print editions, makes up about half the cost, while editorial operations only make up 15 percent.

Varian concludes: “Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet.” … “The fact of the matter is that newspapers have never made much money from news,” says Varian. They make money from “special interest sections on topics such as Automotive, Travel, Home & Garden, Food & Drink,, and so on.” The problem is that on the Web, other niche sites which cater to those categories are a click away, leaving the newspapers with sections which are harder to sell ads against, such as sports, news, and local.””

Stephen

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Posted on: April 24, 2010, 12:56 pm Category: Uncategorized

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