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Roy Greenslade in a period of reflection

UK newspapers still thinking about things digital

William Pollard (will789)

Roy Greenslade writes in the UK Guardian about newspapers, sometimes ignoring the web in his explanation about declining circulations. I have commented on this in previous articles for OhmyNews so there is not much point in repeating the same text too often. It is still the case that the Guardian chooses not to publicise the existence of their 'digital editions' but this may change at some point.

A couple of weeks ago Roy Greenslade looked in detail at an upbeat report on newspaper circulation and pointed out that most of the increases were in developing countries. "In the developed world, newspapers are retrenching in the face of the on-line revolution. But can they find a new role to retain audiences? That question will never be answered if journalists slap themselves on the back by pointing to a non-existent renaissance. It is time to think rather than to smile complacently."

This is a very welcome development and his future writing should be studied carefully. Although the UK ABC decided last year that figures for online subscriptions could be included with print certificates, so far no UK publication has 'opted in' so it is still not possible to work out how significant a part of their income is involved with the web. Again, this has been mentioned in previous articles.

Some magazines have made enough progress with digital to go public. Digital Magazine News reported in May that BPA now include 101 editions in their audited figures published in December 2004. This compares with 46 a year previously. Most of these titlesare based in the US and relate to technology. Just under 40% of subsribers to "Electronics Weekly" have chosen the digital version. "Foreign Policy" is a non-technical title on the list, but only 13% of subscriptions are digital.

There are some UK titles, but mostly from publishers also connected with the Netherlands. VNU publish "IT Week" and "Computing". "Computer Weekly" is published by Reed Elsevier. BPA will probably continue to expand their international coverage of digital editions so ABC UK is likely to continue to offer the option.

Digital Magazine News is published as a PDF designed to be viewed full screen. There is navigation on each page so no need to use the Adobe Reader. The look of a magazine is maintained. There is a free copy available for download, including details on BPA circulation figures and an article about Graphic Exchange.

Graphic Exchange is also financed by advertising and is designed as a PDF for download. It offers a choice of a 9meg file or 78meg with video and other media included. This is a rare example of a PDF file that risks the file size required to include video with the usual text and graphics. The magazine is intended for graphic designers so they may be more prepared than most to wait for the download.

At the moment the Guardian use of PDF is restricted to a page equivalent of one news item at a time. Files are usually a few 100k so load quite quickly. If bandwidth and habit allowed files of 10meg or more at a time there would be scope for many new features.

In the current UK "PC Pro" Tom Agah considers the likely merger of Adobe and Macromedia. Given 'a truly integrated' PDF and Flash 'authoring and delivery solution'...'the static electronic document is about to come fully alive (and about time too)." Actually a lot of integration is already possible if the bandwidth is available and if the people viewing the screen are familiar with what to expect.

Probably there will have to be a number of experiments before the print media publicise the possibilities and the publishers of digital editions opt in to the ABC scheme to certificate figures for circulation. For pop singles the downloads reached about 40% of the sales of CD singles before they were included in the official UK top twenty.

The New York Times recently reported increased advertising sales for each media group of about 5%, including internet advertising within each group that inreased about 23%. At some point figures could be available that clearly show how the print and web incomes compare. It is hard to get an idea of proportions at the moment.

Last week Roy Greenslade was probably joking in suggesting that a future for UK newspapers would be as free gifts bundled with music CDs and film DVDs. However if newspapers had more subsciptions to their web sites it would be possible to include some sound and vision.

This week there is an interview with Sarah Sands,the new editor of the Sunday Telegraph. One aim is for the newspaper to be "like your iPod, containing all your favourite things". It is not clear from the article how this might happen.