INSIGHTS FROM VISIOLAB
Newspapers are facing a bigger challenge than ever before. Circulation numbers all over the world are decreasing as the digital world continues to gain importance in the media industry. A growing number of actions has been taken in order to prevent the decrease in circulation numbers. Few newspapers have even decided to all together move away from the physical distribution of a newspaper. Instead, they have invested in extensive digital alternatives to the physical copy. These initiatives include the digital release of the newspaper via Visiolink e-paper solution, alternative news apps and a pure web focus.
The result of the individual media house’s attempts to increase usage on their digital solutions have had various outcomes. Some have successfully created a large amount of users on multiple platforms, which serves an important role. Being able to move subscribers from one media to another will become a central issue in the media world. Acquiring new users have always been more expensive as opposed to lowering churn. This churn focus can become one of the key aspects in creating a sustainable business. At Visiolab, we have noticed a large difference between successful and unsuccessful uses of the e-paper.
E-paper usage spans between less than 0.5% to more than 20% of the circulation number, which reveals a large business potential. Large newspapers with a high e-paper usage will not only be able to prevent churn, but create even higher profit through leveraging the new digital advertising opportunities. Especially interstitials and clickable ads have proven to be a profitable business, as it creates large revenues without adding significant additional costs.
This information emphasizes the growing importance of all digital platforms and shows how too many newspapers tend to under prioritize the e-paper. With the right tools and decisions, the e-paper can become highly profitable for almost any publisher and prevent more users from churning. (moving away from the newspaper format and instead incorporate the known editorial quality from print with the versatility of the digital e-paper.)
As shown in the chart, the number of high penetrating online newspapers is limited – only 25 of the 150 listed papers has reached the 10 % mark.