Media Matters

The hoo–ha over the major publishers, including News International, opening new press plants around the country which allow full-colour printing of their papers seems a little overblown to me. At least from a strategic perspective.

While they will obviously do is allow the publishers to charge more for advertising (a welcome thing now that classified revenues are ever harder to find as they head off to the Web at a rate of knots) but as Peter Preston rightly points out the revenue and yield boost will, in strategic terms, be only brief. Once they’re all colour, rates will drop again.

Yes, colour presses will keep the shareholders happy for a while, but only until they’re no longer a source of competitive advantage. What they won’t do is change any of the structural forces driving readership decline — particularly the lifestyle and attention economy factors. If you haven’t got time for a part-colour paper, you still won’t for a full-colour one. Will kids suddenly buy and read papers because they’re full colour? I think not.

What full colour will do is improve the yield from the long-term harvesting exit strategy being pursued by the major publishers in relation to the print editions of their brands. For now they’re still cash cows and this will increase how much milk they produce, to be given to feed the calves of future channels for the brands, particularly the Web but also mobile.

Labels: advertising, colour, News International, newspapers. strategy

# posted by Unknown @ 7:01 pm