Summary
A closer or perhaps an inside look is required when considering the current fate of the newspaper / media segment. While newspapers are routinely critical of their own efforts, with the same level of routine they neglect to inform about their position of dominance despite dips in circulation. Aggregated or layered portfolios clearly indicate that no other medium has the potential to reach more. Always, consider things in context. Even if you're not a media company.
Analysis
Newspapers are the first to write about a decline in circulation - yet they posses the same power to inform millions that they have grown non-daily niche and non-core affiliated web-site production. When was the last article you read that spoke about print's dominant market share when compared to the growing, fragmented choices of other media distribution vehicles?
Newspapers aren't dead and reports of same are greatly exaggerated.
Several companies (including some family / privately owned) enjoy robust profit margins through shrewed management of operational expenses while growing NTR (non-traditional revenue), stabilizing circulation declines, and most importantly, adding products to their portfolio (affiliated websites, video, Young Reader Publications, Free weekly or daily pubs, parenting magazines etc.) of products.
Just yesterday. a trade publication spoke of the Murdoch purchase. In doing so - they mentioned that nearly 200 subscribers had canceled their subscription as a result of the new ownership. The report failed to indicate what those numbers mean in context. A paper of the size that Mr. Murdoch added to his toy chest nets ten times that amount in starts each week, and when compared to their "secured" subscriptions the number of stops is virtually irrelevant. Why didn't this report also mention the "context"?
Point is, look closer and consider context of reporting, despite the fact that the industry seems to forget to do so.
