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Although most newspapers this year will retain about 15% of their revenues as profit, a margin that many other businesses would envy, and although the most acute financial problems seem to be cyclical, many editors and analysts fear that the industry faces long-term trouble. The biggest problem is a steady decline in reader interest. In 1946, for every 100 U.S. households, there were 133 newspapers sold. Today that figure is halved. Even more worrisome is the sharp decline in reader interest among the under-30 generation, despite attention getters ranging from high-tech graphics to more coverage of rock music.
The drop in importance to readers has been mirrored among advertisers. In 1946 newspapers accounted for 35% of all ad dollars spent; today they reap just 26%. While newspapers still outsell television in total advertising, TV dominates in national ads, which come prepackaged and are sold in bulk. Newspapers rely on local advertising, which is often less profitable because it must be sold bit by bit and may require costly involvement in makeup and production. In addition, much advertising that traditionally appeared on newspaper pages is now done through preprinted inserts, at lower fees, or has gone over to direct mail.
Many newspapers seek to reinvent the format. But they differ sharply about what tack to take. Some, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and Dallas Morning News, carry more national and international coverage, believing readers have had their horizons broadened by TV. Others, including the Boston Herald and NewarkStar Ledger, seem to feel their best chance at survival is to stay resolutely local.
Dave Burgin, a veteran editor who now runs the Houston Post, argues that newspapers must concede they are no longer the means by which people first learn about events. Therefore, he says, they must become more featurish, with life-style and entertainment moved up to the front page. The New York Times has already moved in that direction, playing up pop sociology and urban angst -- and the gray dowager will introduce color late next year. To compete with broadcasting's once-over-lightly approach, papers such as the St. Paul Pioneer-Press and Providence Journal have experimented with running a highlighted synopsis within some long stories.
Even alarmists concede that newspapers will persist in some form for a long time. Says analyst John Morton of the consultants Lynch Jones & Ryan: "There is still no cheaper or more economic way to deliver a mass amount of news to a mass audience." But in a business accustomed to high profit, a slight slippage can result in cutbacks of coverage. Some editors predict that newspapers will become repackagers, rather than originators, of information, dropping costly foreign bureaus and investigative projects in favor of wire- service copy. Other editors argue that what makes newspapers marketably different is depth and detail. One can only hope the believers in news coverage are right -- and that they prevail.
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