Newspaper publishers from around the world see other newspapers, not the Web,
as their primary competition for ad dollars, according to a recent survey.
Still, a majority (53.1%) of newspaper publishers said if their reporters
were sitting on a major story they would break it immediately on their Web
sites rather than hold the story for regular publication in the paper.
The survey was taken among publishers who will attend the 25th Publicitas
Promotion Network Conference in Miami this weekend.
Publicit
as Promotion Network, a division of the Swiss company PubliGroupe, is an international promotion and management company for print and
online advertising.
As important as the publishers regard their own web efforts, they don’t fear
the Internet as primary competition for ad dollars. Other newspapers in their
markets were seen as the biggest threat, followed by pan-regional or national
newspapers, then television, direct marketing, then free publications and
radio with Internet sites ranking near the bottom of all competitive media
outlets.
“This heavy focus on print-centric competition may seem somewhat
short-sighted given the hype of the Internet and media conversion,” said Dave Morgan,
president
of New York City-based Real Media, which operates a network of
newspaper Web sites. “However, it likely reflects the reality of the
marketplace, where the overwhelming majority of advertising expenditures are
still projected to be within traditional media outlets for many years to
come.”
More than half of the publishers said they were already selling Web
advertising in combination with print buys (53.1 percent) with another 12.5 percent
saying they are
planning to sell these “print plus” combinations.
The online survey was conducted Web Statistics of Atlanta, GA during the past
two months. Of the 32 publishers who participated in the survey the
majority (72 percent) were based in Europe with 16 percent based in Asia, 10
percent based in the United States and 3 percent in Latin America.
