Print Media Surrenders to Online Statistics

By Lyndsey | Posted January 6, 2009 | 1 Comment(s) | Filed in: Business, Internet Marketing

The Detroit Free Press recently announced sweeping changes to its business model as a key survival strategy in the struggling newspaper industry.

The first of its kinds, the plan calls for more information and articles to be delivered online and a cutback on home deliveries. The daily newspaper only will deliver on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays — the strongest days for advertising — beginning in spring 2009.

The decision was made as a way to avoid deep newsroom cuts, which is happening across the nation, and to remain a two-newspaper city. The statistics speak for themselves — page views on freep.com nearly doubled over last year’s numbers, according to the article — forcing the newspaper to listen to the numbers and act on them.

The question is will newspapers across the country begin to follow suit? Will the Detroit Free Press serve as a model for the struggling industry on how to survive this crisis?

But as no one has the real answer, I think you’ll begin to see a lot of newspapers in the next year testing different survival strategies to “rethink and rebuild,” as the Detroit Media Partnership CEO Dave Hunke puts it. Newspapers have no choice; they are running out of options. Listen to what the numbers are telling us or stop the presses.

Related Posts:

Blog Series — The Battle for Influence: Print vs. Online Media

Part 1 — Newspapers without the Paper?

Part 2 — Views from the Mainstream

Part 3 — Print Media Is Losing

Part 4 — Public Relations: The New Fundamentals

Lyndsey Walker is a Consultant for PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. After five years in the journalism field, she is happy to have made the switch to public relations.