Press cartel double newspaper prices
The press tends to blame the Government for runaway inflation.
Trouble is, what can the Government really do when all three daily newspapers, the Guardian, the Express and Newsday act as a cartel and, simultaneously, decide to send up the price of their daily editions by a whopping 100 per cent – from $1 to $2?
From Easter Monday these newspapers, said to be affected by declining advertising and circulations sales, will simply be doubling the price of their newspapers, thereby aggravating the inflationary trend in the country.
While it is true that raw materials such as newsprint, printers’ ink, plates, photographic material and so on would have increased over the years, the newspapers cannot seriously be facing hard times because, according to recently published annual financial accounts, both the Guardian and the Express are doing very well, financially. And the Newsday is also raking in hefty profits.
The Trinidad Publishing Company Ltd, publishers of the Guardian, in its 2008 financial statements, actually boasted of increased circulation sales and had after tax income of $45.9 million while both the Express and Newsday were said to have very impressive financial returns, with both entities maintaining market share.
The Express and the Newsday each have daily circulation sales of over 70,000 while the Guardian is struggling at just over 40,000.
Advertising brings in the real profits and all three tabloids have the appearance of metropolitan newspapers in terms of size – numerous supplements during the week about this, that or the other, which boost advertising revenues.
Some 70 per cent of the column space in the Express is allocated to advertising with the rest being, theoretically, reserved for editorial content, thereby short-changing the reader.
The managements of all three newspapers have calculated that the 100 per cent increase would cause circulation sales to go down sharply: it won’t matter much as there would be financial savings in the utilisation of newsprint and other newspaper production material. They would, simply, use less of such material on a daily basis. This amounts to a savings in the production process.
The reality is that newspapers do not make money selling their product at the newsstands: in fact, this is a cost.
The money is in advertising, stupid.
However, independent market studies suggest that newspaper sales have been falling steadily: young people are not buying or reading traditional newspapers but, instead, reading the news online.
This is an international trend which, three weeks ago, forced one daily newspaper in Seattle, Washington, to cease printing and to go online.
There is the double whammy of advertising: 90 per cent of the ads are derived from the advertising agencies which have been overwhelmed by the growth of the media over the past 18 years.
Without any truly reliable guide, except the Market Facts and Opinion surveys which tend to be flawed, they take the easy way out by allocating 90 per cent of the $600 million annual advertising pie to what they term the established media – the three dailies receiving more than their fair share, and then TV6, CNC3 and Channel C.
Just recently, the Blast weekly newspaper was forced to close its doors because of the advertising squeeze and Gayelle had to fire its news staff, eat humble pie and accept a simulcast from CNC3.
Chaguanas-based WIN TV is said to be undergoing financial trouble. So, too, many radio stations and weekly newspapers, Mirror and Bomb.
In the meantime, there has been the appearance of blogs and interactive online community media such as Point Alive that has democratized media.
This year will be a make or break year for the traditional media as the economic bad times worsen.