The big news in newspapers this week is that paywalls are starting to pay off for some of the bigger-circ publications. The latest data released by the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM – formerly known as the Audit Bureau of Circulation) indicates that while overall circulation figures for papers nationwide have gone down, major papers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have seen a boost in their total circulation numbers, in no small part due to their boost in digital subscriptions, which now account for almost 20 percent of all daily circulation.
One caveat to these cheery figures is that AAM allows newspapers to count individual subscribers who have both a print and digital subscription twice, as multiple media commentators have pointed out.
So where do these papers actually stand then?
With the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) recently releasing a Nielsen study they sponsored about consumer media engagement that reports newspapers have the highest “trustworthiness” among readers, and highest audience engagement with content and advertisements, it would seem the newspaper industry is out in full force to prove it still has efficacy – especially to advertisers.
The New York Times, among some other papers, could use a boost in advertising confidence. The paper’s Q1 earnings fell flat, with a 93 percent drop in revenue compared to the same time frame a year ago. Granted, these figures failed to include properties that the Times Co. sold at the end of 2012, but they still fell short of projected earnings. Likewise, advertising revenue was down 11 percent to $191.1 million from $215.2 million in Q1 2012.
Investor confidence is also down, with stock price of the NY Times Co. slipping this week, despite news of circulation bumps.
There’s no doubt that with all of the ways readers can access and share the news, quantifying exactly how large a given paper’s readership is can be immensely difficult. But measurements are only going to get messier.
In October, AAM will no longer require newspapers to submit a five-day average of their circulation figures for audience measurement and auditing, which has long been the standard measurement. This means that even a somewhat reliable indicator of audience size will be hard to come by, let alone comparable between papers.
Perhaps then newspapers will be left once again with but their strongest suit to deliver them advertising dollars: their ability to tell (or spin) a good story – this time about their reach, audience, and influence. Legacy and trustworthiness may help too, but only for so long.
Content writers and editors need to step up their game to keep up with free-flowing information from digital mediums.
It’s time for a new metric.
