Newsprint hikes put journalists under pressure

Throughout the growing years of this circulation, British newspaper publishers were not at all concerned. Readers’ migration to technology helped to keep the price of paper used in printing presses, among their major costs.

Now, however, rising inflation poses a new threat to the cheap approach. After more than a decade of low-cost records, prices have risen in recent months since the mid-1990s.

Unless the problems are reduced, some officials say, publishers will be forced to raise cover prices, reduce page counts or speed up closure of multiple headlines. A senior executive at the company described the cost of printing as a “crisis” that could lead to “major changes” over the next five years. “Some responsibilities will not survive,” said the man.

The Daily Mail and General Trust, which operates the world’s largest daily sales force, says it is already reviewing employee numbers based on rising costs.

Concerns about purchasing power during this period have been weighing in on London-based subscribers to the Daily Mirror, Reach, which has dropped by almost a third since the beginning of September.

Experts of the company, whose history is about 110 names, said they were in talks about two annual renewed agreements next month.

Henry Faure Walker, chief executive of Newsquest, which publishes 22 dailies including The Northern Echo, Glasgow’s The Herald and The Argus in Brighton, described the recent rise in prices as “amazing”.

But he said the change in the internet meant that the cost of publishing articles “would have less impact today than it would have been five or ten years ago”.

Local and international publishers are studying change to digital, which at Reach for example generates about a quarter of the revenue. Even after the recent sale, its shares are still five times higher in the last three years as investors have become more confident that they can drive change.

Susan Panuccio, chief financial officer of News Corp, told the conference this week that digital is now part of the “DNA” of Rupert Murdoch’s international record, which includes The Times and The Sun in the UK.

However, she adds: “This does not mean that they do not exist [not] can be very cheap in different markets at different times. . . Obviously, printing is still difficult. ”

Most UK newspapers are made up of three companies – News Corp, DMGT and Reach – where other publishers print.

Soon after the outbreak, the collapse of the newspaper business caused newspaper prices to plummet. Subsequent metabolic imbalances have led to an increase, however.

In the past year, according to Fastmarkets, the cost of publishing in Europe has risen from € 445 to € 535 per tonne. Officials and other printers have experienced a dramatic increase of about 60 percent.

A few weeks ago, according to Douglas McCabe, chief executive of Enders Analysis, the pressures were so severe that some companies were concerned that they would not be able to get enough publications to meet their needs, even though they doubted that “serious fears about availability. ”Had just finished.

The creative process is strong in part because of the professional competition, in which newspapers are competing not only for readers and advertisers but also for more and more in the media.

While some mills have closed down entirely due to the shortage of newspapers, others have changed their machines to make cardboard boxes to meet the needs of many people from ecommerce.

As a result, the number of mills in print media has dwindled and the UK is left with only one factory, King’s Lynn in Norfolk, leaving printers relying on Scandinavian and Canadian products.

Grinding for newspapers requires a lot of energy, so the price of gas has become a major problem. Likewise have a high fiber cost. Prices for old newspapers and photocopied papers, which are the main source of correspondence, have skyrocketed over the past year, says Alejandro Mata, director at Fastmarkets.

There is no way that publishers can choose to reduce their exposure to the good news.

Rising cover prices are threatening to keep most consumers from buying newspapers.

Prices have grown steadily over the past few years: between 2010 and 2018, the average price among the general population rose by almost 60 percent, according to Enders. McCabe said he doubted that “good” publications, especially those published over the weekend, had the potential for further expansion than tabloids.

Reducing page counting, meanwhile, can make it visible to readers at all end of the market.

The free names were very unsafe, the researchers said, because by that definition they would not be able to raise prices. Such publications have long been affected by the decline in traffic: The daily Metro spread of 1.1m in September compared to more than 1.4m before the epidemic.

Faure Walker observes: “Free printers, and small local publishers, are likely to suffer more from the dramatic increase in newspaper prices than perhaps even larger publishers.”

Reducing employment is not a solution to the future of the newspaper, especially since most media outlets are already spending less money.

Publishers need to invest in digital content to succeed in digital, says Chris Morley, national co-ordinator of the National Union of Journalists. “It would not be reasonable to resign from journalism because of a temporary setback.”

A major concern is that inflation is continuing, McCabe said, adding that even dry newspaper editors were “concerned about the speed and dangers” of rising prices.

“Most businesses appreciate that [energy inflation] it will stabilize and will probably start to decline again over time, “he said.” But it is part of their business that they cannot control.