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It is my favorite hobby horse to remind those who consider newspapers, the classic paper-on-ink version, moribund that this claim has been current since the invention of broadcast radio, a century ago. Yes, as Mr. Wolverton observes, "industry-wide revenues have been more than halved since 2006. Advertising has been particularly impacted."

This reflects not evidence of inevitable doom but the convergence of the long-overdue economic correction in earnings, mostly classified earnings, which caused line advertising earnings to soar during the 1990s and fall back in next decade, as well as galloping greed and stupidity at the very top of news organizations, which fueled a reckless rise in subscription prices, concurrent with a spending spree online and a collapse in overall content. It is this, and a 33-percent reduction in nameplates, which has fueled the collapse in weekday circulation, to 28.6 million in 2018 from a peak of 63.3 million in 1984.

While it is also true that, as Mr. Wolverton notes, that "advertising revenues industry-wide tumbled from nearly $50 billion in 2005 to $14.3 billion in 2018, with print advertising, plunging from $47.4 billion to roughly $12.5 billion over the same period. What is frequently overlooked is the simple fact that the fixed production/composition costs of going to press declined, from 1970 to 1990, by three quarters, and the adjusted for inflation daily advertising revenue of newspapers remains higher than it was in 1960, during the supposed heyday of the printed newspaper.

The simple fact is, as Mr. Wolverton suggests, the problem with newspapers in not technology but management. As long as publishers think their newspapers are doomed, they will be doomed. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

but in ourselves."

From: What’s Really Behind the Plight of Newspapers?

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