Following on from my post regarding the Kindle and the possible beginning of the end for the traditional hardbook in the U.S RTE reported yesterday that the Sunday Tribune, owned in part by Independent News and Media empire, would cease publication for the next four weeks. This follows a continuous decline in readership and more significantly massive debt accumulation. INM has invested up €40 million to date in the publication which continues to make losses. For me the most significant contribution to this decline is not only that people are buying less newspapers with the advent of free online news publications, which is true;. But it must also be considered that considering the global economic downturn advertising, a major source of income for the industry, is down. Social media which costs next to nothing to develop is proving far more cost efficient than traditional broadsheet advertising; particular when you consider that a majority of target audiences are now getting their news online. So just as intimated with the kindle is this the beginning of the end for a number of staple publications within the Irish market? Will more and more newspapers simply abandon print, and restructure to purely online publications? I personally hope not. For me reading the news on your iphone, laptop or blackberry (if your lucky enough to have one or all three) simply isn’t the same as the feel of a good newspaper. I guess the only ones happy about such a development would be the opticians!
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0202/sundaytribune.html
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