we will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD.
Editors Weblog has this quote from New York Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger. He was speaking at a conference in London earlier this week. He was asked to respond to a suggestion that the NYT may stop printing in 2015.
The question is being posed not only in relation to the NYT with all newspapers as we watch circulation flatline and publishers invest considerable sums in pay walls for online content and developing applications for devices like the Apple iPad.
While the focus is on the impact of devices on the print model, one must also consider the impact of environmental issues, the cost of newsprint, the cost of ink and the increasing cost of landing a newspaper on a subscriber’s front lawn.
Newsagents are voting with their feet about the future of the newspaper home delivery model with many quitting this year. The home delivery ‘crisis’ as a publisher labelled in talking with me last year is far from over.
But back to Sulzberger. He interests me because he was one of the first publishers to note that broadband would significantly impact newspapers – covered in BusinessWeek in 2005. Rupert Murdoch soon picked up on this and then overtook Sulzberger as the publisher spruiking a digital future.