In the end it happened: online information overtakes the press!

For over a decade gurus have been terrorising traditional publishers by talking of a changing world in terms of the use of news, of an online channel which will end up overtaking, if not replacing, the print version of newspapers. And now that moment has come, the change has been confirmed by a study from the Pew Research Center and seems to set the seal on an irreversible process. After national and local TV broadcasters, Internet is chosen by 61% of people as their preferred information channel; the thirst for news, online and offline, seems to be growing disproportionately and the web is a favoured channel for this demand. More bad news then for traditional publishers, who have to cope with a 50% drop in the number of readers and with strategic problems for which they have still not found answers or new business models to apply.

Although everyone is convinced that online information represents the future, if not the present, of information, the advertising business models which are used today cannot hope to generate the revenues to which publishers have become used, and which are needed to cover the necessary costs and investments. If the online communication future meant a change in publishers’ cost structure, it would mean that the quality of information would be the first to suffer. A scenario that no one wants to see.

2 March 2010