The Print Media business is in big trouble at the moment. Several media houses have altogether shut down and some have filed for bankruptcy (Tribune).
Why is this happening?
The simple economics is that revenues have sunk below publishing costs (i.e. paper + print + distribute). Also, there is some tough competition from Television & New Media. For advertisers, newspapers are no longer the only game in town.
Newspapers need to reinvent… not incrementally but exponentially. Else, they might go the dinosaur way!
Google Vs Yahoo!
Google tried selling contextual print ads in newspapers… but the strategy failed:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/20/google-bails-on-print-ads-and-newspapers/
Surprisingly, Yahoo seems to be enjoying some degree of success here. Yahoo’s Newspaper Consortium Keeps Growing:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/09/yahoos-newspaper-consortium-keeps-growing/
Interesting strategy.
Tags: Google, print media, yahoo