Media

The Guardian: Dead in a Decade?

Chuck Ansbacher | Friday 8 April, 2011 15:29

Has the Guardian been making £226 more per reader in annual ad revenues than they were during their print heyday? Of course they haven’t. Yet as the above graph provided by Malcolm Coles shows, this is the difference in the amount of money he’s been giving them to read their paper every year.

And it isn’t because he’s been cheating. He’s simply replaced his daily newsprint habit — which he estimated was running him £230 a year — with their £4 (one time fee) iPhone app and free website. With the Guardian’s circulation numbers falling to an all-time low of 200,000, one can only wonder how much longer the paper can keep this business model alive.

Since American newspaper giants the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have both introduced payment models over the past year for their digital content, this would seem the way forward not only for the Guardian, but basically every paper suffering a 21st Century revenue crunch. As Coles notes in his post, which begins with the words “Dear the Guardian: Please let me give you more money,” the Guardian provides a service which he values greatly, and one that he is more than willing to pay for.

While that sentiment must surely whet the appetites of the Guardian’s accountants, it would be dangerous to assume it is wide spread. The results of the Journal and Times’s ventures into digital subscription territory are anything but certified. Over the past decade, readers have become used to getting their news from a wide variety of sources. And while they may have stopped paying the people who create the news for their news, chances are they’ve seen what they actually spend on media increase dramatically.

Back when the only way to read the news was in the newspaper, buying a newspaper was pretty much your only media expense. TV was free… and that was it. Now? Phone, internet and cable bills have replaced newspaper subscriptions. People may technically get their news for free, but they pay for it in other ways. As the recording industry knows all too well, the honour system isn’t anything close to a revenue model — it’s a joke. When there’s a way to get something for free — even something like music that everybody loves — most people will get it for free.

All of this leads to no easy answers for the Guardian, and newspapers in general. Unlike music, the news can’t be reported from your parents’ basement; when newspapers go under, the news will largely go with them. While Coles may be pleading for a way to pay the paper more money, he is most likely in the minority. And until the Guardian files for charity status, they should be treated like the for-profit business that they are. People are reading the news more than ever — figure out a way to make money off it, or start running some amazing pledge drives.

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