Sad news today to hear about the Sunday Tribune being appointed a receiver. The news papers have had it hard for many years now since my days working for Advent Publish Systems and we had the contract to supply and maintain publishing houses around Ireland.
The vibe was so different in all the newspapers I was in, the Farmers Journal in Bluebell with its country accents in Dublin 12, the Sunday Business Post was formal and very serious, The Star was younger and written in smaller words, The Sunday Tribune was about heart and to be honest they never had money, it was always about the stories and the people involved around them. The atmosphere was always about breaking news, upcoming stories, clever research, but there was always the staff meetings (that I was excluded from, of course) behind glass partitions that lip reading wasn’t needed as the faces said it all.
Profits were down.
Back in 1995/1996 the Internet really changed the business models for many companies in Ireland and industries were starting to be transformed into Global Media businesses. It was during the late 90’s that we “Advent Publishing” help these business push their content online and over the next 3 to 4 years we had published thousands of old school HTML web pages using the content from the newspapers stories, small ads etc.
The one part of the websites that wasn’t really exported online was the advertising and that’s the money making element of any publication. Back then remember it was all new media and a total unknown for selling online adverts to readers. Even nowadays the newspapers find it hard to sell online adverts for the same price that the “traditional adverts” would sell for, why because they have to convince people that real readers use websites to find news and its worth their while placing an advert to bring the visitor to their own website or offer etc.
Digital World.
16 Years later it appears the the Industry can no longer sustain the overheads of a business such as a newspaper. In the past 2 years I have written about how newspaper after newspaper around the world has closed its doors. The Internet seems to kill every business, or is it just technology moving the jobs to a new arena. Think about Sales Reps, they have been totally replaced by databases automatically re-ordering stock when level < 10.
Journalist have been moving over to the web and getting involved in our industry in greater numbers in the past 4 to 5 years. We’ve seen a huge increase in Copy Writers, Content Creators etc move online and forge a living for themselves online. Life moves on. It not the same salary as a PAYE paying job but that life.
Creating gripping content is always needed no matter what the medium, so I hope they migrate to the web and help the web industry get the prices and fee’s it deserves.
Online Advertising.
This must really show that there is a future in Online Advertising as Google Adwords Revenue can confirm. Companies will not look at what medium is best to place your business. Radio adverts pointing listeners to websites maybe!
I honestly wish the employees in the paper the best of luck in the near future, I miss the buzz of a newspaper, the deadlines and finally the pints across the road on Baggot street!
Best of Luck guys.
