The Decline of Newspapers Creates a Surge in Local Startups

Here is a great way to allow students to consider two often separate elements of the business curriculum - the product life cycle and business startups…

A brilliant analysis of the problems facing the newspaper industry

Highly recommended - this thought piece in PaidContent by Nik Brisbourne on the problems facing the global newspaper industry.  Rupert Murdoch may not like it, but it seems inevitable that the traditional newspaper business model is doomed and the existing industry will shrink to a fraction of its size at the peak of newspaper reading and buying.  Some excellent material in here for students about how the nature of demand and revenue in an established oligopoly can change so rapidly, bringing with it upheaval for the existing players and tremendous opportunity for the digital innovators. Brisbourne makes repeated use of a phrase Geoff and I are fond of - “conversation and community”. To those two, we normally add - “content”.  The parallels between the newspaper and textbook publishing industries are quite striking!

The Death of Newspapers - to be replaced by Nichepapers?

There is a perfect storm brewing in the newspaper industry around the globe. Dramatic falls in advertising revenues coupled with a rapid migration of readership from paid-for newsprint to free-to-read digital is destroying the business model of many regional and national newspapers. Here is a thought-provoking piece which considered what the successful newspaper of the future is likely to be. I like the concept of a nichepaper - where readers are prepared to pay for the value added from specialist and passionate journalists and other writers.