Online-Only Newspapers: Counterintuitive Trends

Studying the progress of the Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat as it became Europe’s first online-only newspaper, researchers from City University London discovered a number of seemingly counterintuitive trends from the newspaper’s retiring of its print business.

Six and a half months after going online-only Unique Users were 22 percent lower and Page Impressions 11 percent down. […]

Although Taloussanomat costs fell 52 percent when its presses were silenced, revenue also dropped—by at least 75 percent—due to the loss of print advertising and subscription income. […]

Based on their case-study [the researchers] conclude that a newspaper would have to have an operating loss of 31 percent or greater to make ditching its print edition worthwhile.

The researchers have also conducted a number of other studies in this realm that may be of interest.

via @zambonini

Tags: