Jaspan: Fairfax will stop print weekday newspaper within two years
Former editor of The Age, Andrew Jaspan, says paywalls are not the answer to falling print revenue and has bravely predicted the demise of the print weekday editions of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age within two years.
Jaspan made the comments yesterday during the Mumbrella360 conference in a discussion on whether journalism is still profitable.
“I think you’ll probably see the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age stop printing within year, or two years, Monday to Friday,” said Jaspan.
“People will still want to read the printed weekends, if you’re in a cafe … but it’ll become a very expensive premium price thing.”
I hope that is not the case. I don’t like having to stare at a screen all the time and I look forward to giving my eyes a rest via my daily print SMH. If this does end up being the case, you’d expect shareholder pressure on the ‘new’ News Corp to do the same. They are facing exactly the same issues with print and the latest figures show the Australian newspaper division seriously struggling.
Jaspan’s time at The Age was not marked by any great engagement with the interests of the community. And his loud pronouncements about the demise of Fairfax print titles is nothing more than a grandstanding effort.
The tragedy of Fairfax is that its products stand for nothing. Its management regards cost targets as a measure of achievement. What was a very strong culture of committed people is now a coat rack for consultants and a comfortable (folding) chair for a few people who live on spin.
Sad.
+1 Nought … and DigiGuy …
And to add a pinch of irony, Jaspan’s The Conversation has now started repeatedly rolling out “please donate to us otherwise we’re stuffed” emails to it’s newsletter recipients … mmm …
perhaps they are considering paywalls ?