Over the past 10 years in the UK, newspaper sales have dropped by an astounding 2.25 million, with many newspaper giants losing thousands of readers. In January 2011, The Sun was the most popular newspaper online with an audience of just over 3 million viewers a day, however this is a decreasing percentage by 0.16%. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=46681&c=1
The biggest downfall was the Daily Star whose figures fell by 5.78%, which is a loss of over £10,000. The biggest eye opener which I believe this piece of information shows is the fact that internet circulation of newspaper access online has reached over 8 million viewers around the world, however this is decreasing percentage by 21.76%, so is the online newspaper the way forward?
Advertising for newspapers in the last 10 years have decreased by 20%, which is a massive 50% of newspaper content, meaning that the newspapers are losing almost half of their money due to other means of advertising. The only newspaper that hasn't lost readers in the past year was The Sun, and that was because of the decrease in cover price to only 20p. Other newspapers have increased cover prices and gave away free things in order to counteract the loss in revenue from advertising. McFly and Prince are the best examples of freebies, as they have given away their albums in the Mail on Sunday in order to boost sales for that newspaper and also to gain fans. The Mail on Sunday had an extra 300,000 readers because of this promotion, therefore raising sales.
Rupert Murdoch is one of the most powerful men in the world and it was him who revolutionized the newspaper and media business. The traditional street for newspapers to be developed is Fleet Street and has been for years and years, however Murdoch decided to move his companies out of this sector and into a brand new state of the computerized office block in Wapping. Murdoch also came up with the theory that young people want immediacy when searching for news stories and that young people read what they want to read.
Free newspapers such as Metro have been criticized by main people for the lack of content that the newspaper actually lacks. Metro has been criticized for dumbing down content to appeal to a younger audience, and also for the fact that only 55% of content is news and the other 45% is advertising relevant to the local community.
In order to counteract with the digital evolution, The Telegraph opened hi-tech office, story ranks in order to create competition within the company and also a video studio to upload videos to the website and make compilations. The common printing press in the modern day prints approximately 86,000 papers an hour, which is 23 million copies a month, one paper to every 3 people in the UK.
Online access around the world has impacted the world of newspapers massively in the 21st century. Newspapers are now forced to go online in order to fight with the competition and give the people news, as well as selling news to a worldwide audience, using advertisements which appeal to their geographical location and not just for the sole place of the construction of the publisher.
