¶ … demand: A Change in News Consumer Demand in Britain
Pfanner, Eric. (28 Feb 2005) "British Papers Stem Losses, but the reader grows fickle." International Herald Tribune. From The New York Times. World Business News Retrieved 28 Feb 200528 Feb 2005 at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/business/worldbusiness/28paper.html?
Consumer demand is fickle, particularly when it comes to non-necessary commodity goods and services. Media consumption, biologically speaking, is not a necessity. Nor do the physical productions of the newspaper industry take the form of durable goods. Rather, newspapers are disposable good. Famously, newspapers are used to wrap fish and chips in Great Britain the day after they are eagerly read. This metaphor of the reality of the news industry reveals how the news industry is especially subject to shifts in consumer demand, based on taste and income.
For a long time, the dominance of the British papers was thought to be unassailable, given the lesser importance of television and other media. However, incursions from other, competing sources of news such as the Internet have cut down the market demand for newspapers in Great Britain. This has changed the positioning strategy of many papers. Some sober papers have now begun to adopt tabloid topics and strategies to desperately cope with a downslide in circulation.
But this strategy may prove counterproductive, as it only consolidates the market even more, lessening the variety of papers offered to the public and making price rather than quality...
While there is no question the British newspaper industry will have to deal with a continuing erosion of sales, many of its efforts have resulted in a news marketplace that looks increasingly crowded in the middle. As, the papers show less distinction between one another. "Consolidation" will be "inevitable in the long-term, given the increasing costs of production." (Pfanner, 2005)
Consolidation, of course, is a gentle euphuism for the fact that many great papers of the British press will fold, in the face of lost profits and lesser demand. Eventually, the implication is, that the invisible hand of the market will force a new equilibrium, with fewer papers in response to lesser demand. There is, in essence, an opportunity cost that all papers currently in the marketplace must consider. They must make a sacrifice, the price of a choice between two mutually exclusive alternatives -- either they can upgrade their image and content or downgrade their image and their content. Regardless, the great papers must distinguish themselves in an increasingly over-stuffed and uncompetitive marketplace. Robert Thomson, editor of The Times, is attempting an upgrading strategy. He insists the "audience for serious journalism is increasing," although he also admits that such serious journalism is seriously expensive," and does not always produce an immediate return on investment, like tabloid journalism traditionally has (Pfanner, 2005)
Even The Times has changed its product design and format to attract…
