Last week we talked about a report by Macquarie media that concluded that “dropping print editions of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and delivering content via e-readers such as Apple’s iPad could boost earnings from the two papers to $55m — $5m more than the bank’s 2010 forecast… [Macquarie] analyst Alex Pollak also suggests Fairfax could get the ball rolling by spending about $50m to give away 100,000 e-readers to seed the migration of readers away from print.”
We also discussed how the New York Times sent a shock wave through the publishing industry by predicting the demise of the print version of the grey old lady. Although Arthur Sulzberger didn’t pin a date on the change; reports have suggested it could happen within five years.
This week I have been talking to people from East Lansing about a study at Michigan State University surveying student’s preference for paper textbooks or e-books. And yesterday a story appeared in The New York Times reporting that The Hollywood Reporter, a daily print magazine, is going to print only once-a-week and a daily digital edition distributed via PDF will replace the daily printed version.
If we looked at each of these individually, we would discover different motivations. At MSU there is a campus wide initiative to be greener and reduce paper use. The Hollywood Reporter has been losing money and is trying to appeal to and attract new advertisers. But what’s most interesting is the interest from newspapers because declines have slowed.
Ad spending in U.S. newspapers fell 5.6% in the second quarter of 2010, a consecutive decrease that shows strange hope for the industry after much deeper declines. After dropping 29% in the second quarter of 2009, the declines were 27.9% in the third quarter, and 23.7% in the fourth. The decline slowed considerably in the first quarter of 2010, to 9.7%. As a result, experts are starting to discuss how e-readers may help newspapers.
But from a 30,000 foot view point it looks like a migration from print publishing to electronic publishing. The real question is, “Is it too early or too late for a migration from print publishing to electronic publishing?”
Howard Fenton is a Senior Consultant at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers, in-plants, and manufacturers on workflow management, operations, digital services, and customer research.
Discussion
By Ed Danielczyk on Sep 16, 2010
Howie,
You pose an interesting question for all of us to ponder. I wanted to provide a comment specifically pertaining to the MSU test focused on traditional books verses e-books. As an adjunct professor, teaching in an MBA program, I purposely selected a textbook this semester that was available either as a traditional textbook or available via an e-textbook. Perhaps not surprising, all of the students selected to purchase the traditional textbook verses the e-textbook version. Since this is an MBA required class, you may think that the student demographics played a role in their selection. Perhaps you are correct in that the majority of the students are older and established business professionals. However, a small sub segment of the students are much younger and actually many of the “younger” sub-group own e-readers, including the iPAD, from various vendors. Non scientific feedback indicates that part of the learning process is the physical interaction with the textbook, as conveyed to me by the students. It appears that there is no real debate about the eventual adoption of e-textbooks at some point in time. However, until the e-readers can duplicate the same “learning process experience” that the student finds with the traditional book, wide spread adoption is going to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
By Howie Fenton on Sep 16, 2010
Ed
Thanks for your insights. I have heard these conversations about "part of the learning process is the physical interaction with the textbook" but there are two sides to that story and two developing camps of readers.
On one side are those preferring ebooks who site less weight and lower costs. When I taught in college and when I manages a quick copy shop and sold coursepacks I heard students complain that text books and coursepacks were breaking there backpacks and backs.
But if you look at the MSU study and talk to students you learn that there are many who prefer to read books on paper. As you said they talk about the feel of the book, as well as the importance of highlighting, scribbling notes and all the other complaints we heard when pdf was introduced.
I am not sure if there is a clear preference today or if there will ever be a clear dominant form of the book. I am starting to see a clear separation of paper book and e-book lovers. And I am not sure it has anything to do with age.
I meet paper book and e-book lovers on airplanes all the time and each can make a passionate case for there preference. Some are younger and others older but I do not see a connection between age and preference
What are you seeing? Is anyone seeing a clear preference of one type of book over another or a connection between age and preference?
By Elizabeth on Sep 24, 2010
Howie - your related article on the impact of e-books on newspapers and paper books is also very interesting. Nice work. http://tinyurl.com/22pusgn
Discussion
Join the discussion Sign In or Become a Member, doing so is simple and free