The future of the printed newspaper and magazine?

Written by Lasse Krogell, Nopa:

A couple of weeks ago a guy selling Helsingin Sanomat, the number one daily newspaper in Finland, approached me. His intention was to sell the newspaper, but I told him I am already a daily reader of the printed paper. But as an active salesguy he did not give up. He told me that now when the annual subscription price has raised to 720 € he suggested that I would switch to the e-paper to save money. I did not grab his offer, but started to think what a reasonable price for the subscription would be and what will the effect of such a high price for the subscription be.

I don’t think the price is the main reason for the falling number of subscriptions but definitely it has an effect on it. The publishers have certainly reacted, and they rather show the subscription price per month than per year. 60 € per month for Helsingin Sanomat sounds reasonable as 720 € per year feels too much. But all in all, it is sad, not only for the newspaper printers but also for all the readers that don’t anymore subscribe and get the information the editorial department presents in the daily paper.

I think the subscription prices for magazines are more reasonable, but still the runs are falling constantly. Is it just that people don’t have the patients to sit down and relax to read informative, entertaining and well printed magazines, or what is the root reason?

At least here in Finland we don’t get anymore the statistics telling the number of copies subscribed and sold for the newspaper and the magazine titles. The publishers stopped this already some years ago. The same is with the paper production statistics. Euro Graph used to publish the monthly shipments of the main paper grades, but I just read that they have in June decided to stop this and they show only the annual figures.

More concrete than statistics are the information we get about paper production closures. This summer we have read that UPM Kaukas, with a LWC, MWC capacity of 300.000 tonnes will close. We also read about the possible closure of one paper machine at the Sappi Kirkniemi mill. Already earlier UPM has closed the Plattingen and H ürth mills with a sum capacity of almost 1 million tonnes of magazine and newsprint. Heinzel Papier in Austria have closed the Laakirchen SC mill at the end of last year with a capacity of over 300.000 tonnes.

All these changes have a great impact on the printing industry. Also, in our industry a lot of changes have happened and are under planning. At the NOPA meeting in November in Helsinki the programme will focus on the developments in our industry. We will hear print executives telling their stories about how they follow the development in demand, and how consolidation has been one of the key elements in their business over the last years. I am sure the November seminar will be very interesting and truly a must-attend event.