Despite the move to compact, the trend is downwards for The Age and SMH

Herald-Sun is Melbourne and News Ltd.

What is a bank holiday?

Should be interesting to see the collapse in internet readership now that the paywall is up.

thanks for the analysis Tim – a useful read. And you’re right, upward trends of any description in traditional media are not to be sneezed at.

I didn’t think the move to tabloid/”compact” was meant to halt the decline in circulation but to reduce production costs.

It’s pretty trendy to bash the media these days, the press in particular, but really, I would’ve thought that what’s in the paper would count more. Size isn’t everything, as the old saying goes.

I wish Fairfax all the best because, although the situation here is not as dire as the US or the UK, we need a diversity in Australia.

I read the SMH via ipad app every day and pay nothing. I encounter very few ads. I’m surprised that they haven’t started charging yet. Giving it away doesn’t seem like a business plan.

It is interesting to see that in NSW, even the combined print and digital circ numbers for Sunday are lower than the ABC numbers from Dec (14,667 lower). It will be interesting to see what this print number is without digital propping it up!

As I mentioned in a comment on the main article, Fairfax’s digital offerings are still the most popular in Australia, surpassing all other titles and products. I doubt this will change significantly with the paywall, as people will still be able to access a decent number of free articles. Also, News Limited will soon be introducing paywalls for the remainder of its titles. I’m a big fan of Fairfax journalism and personally really like the new compact format. I certainly hope they are around for a lot longer, as the reader above said – it’s so important for diversity. Imagine if the Tele was the only paper left on Sydney!

The Age goes tabloid but without tabloid writing.
No clear, concise, witty copy. Just same old same old.
Nothing will save Fairfax from going down the gurgler.

I was in the US in March when the paywall of SMH went up for foreign readers and ran up my ten free articles rather rapidly for the month. Wit a couple of weeks left to go, instead of paying, I merely pointed my browser at The Age and ran up another ten, then the other Fairfax city papers one after the other and got to read most of what I wanted without having to pay.

Now that I’m back home, I’m happy to head to my local Software Storage Vault each Tuesday morning and peruse a week’s worth of papers in the air conditioned comfort of an easy chair in the Coffs Harbour library. I get no pop up ads, no auto-start videos, don’t have to recycle them or shuffle them around the house. I get to read papers from around Australia and tons of magazines too, at no cost.

Best part is that all the money I save in home delivery, newsagent sales or subscriptions I am able to invest in a holiday to Hawaii each year for about 10 days. And to top it off, I’ve avoided the Choice magazine paywall when buying things by checking what month the article was published on that line of appliances or electronics and again, heading to the library to pull the issue and scan the article with my iPhone.

Great place to meet single women too I might add, generally sober and with guards down as opposed to meeting them in a bar or club.

Phil Tripp, what a tight ashed Scrooge you are. It’s thousands of people like you why Australianmedia is heading down hill.what an effort you go to in order to save a few dollars.

Well, I don’t think he is a Scrooge. If Fairfax too their digital strategy seriously, they’d have a way to combat the paywall flouting.

I paid for many years and made a transition from that old safe software of paper to online viewing without carrying around physical objects, fitting in reading where and when I want. I’m no scrooge, but I’m no fool either. It’s so much like the music business where the major corporates didn’t change with the times and offered the same old shit in gatekeeper mentality, protected or locked.

The Australian media industry is suffering more because it didn’t adapt and what they are offering readers are failing to adopt. It will probably shock the shit out of you that I am a freelance journalist published by News Ltd and many magazines. If I hadn’t started filing stories with email in 1983 and kept abreast of tech as a tool ever since for my content, I would have gone the way of those who believed typewriters were the be all and end all.

Another reason why they suffer declines is that no newsagent is going to actively promote this product. The low commision rates for newsagents makes the decision easy to promote other sectors of their business with higher mark-ups.

Also, Fairfax need to really push the fact that they have quality journalism as a lot of people are reader fatigued, esp with the government situation, and find themselves thinking that each day has the same old news…

Plus why doesnt Fairfax push the fact that actually reading a physical newspaper is a far different and more enriching experience than reading it online. Online is not the be all and end all and I think whichever Publisher wakes up to this fact first will find it very rewarding.

One of the main reasons that ‘The Age’ in Melbourne is declining is that it is an elitist leftist rag, more interested in pushing extremist ideologies than engaging in quality journalism. Their recent “rational suicide’ campaign is an example. ‘The Age’s’ editors actively promote a viewpoint that devalues humanity and puts in jeopardy the quality of health care for everyone – and they wonder why they are losing readership. I used to be a regular reader of ‘The Age’ until I grew tired of the propaganda, and this newspaper seems to be veering more and more into moonbat territory. It is fiddling while Rome burns.