Newspaper owners see profitable future

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 7

Newspaper owners see profitable future

New technology: a source of industrial disputes, the death-knell of the daily newspaper, or the means that opens the way to endless new possibilities?

Members of the Pacific Area Newspaper Production Association, who met in Christchurch for a conference this week, favour the last view.

The message from several of the association’s members was clear: news-, papers have a future but they must be prepared to change as circumstances require.

Mr L. Free, an executive vice-president of Publishing and Broadcasting, Ltd, of Sydney, said newspapers were carriers of information. “The business of giving out information will continue and will increase,” he said. “The printed medium is one of the biggest reservoirs of information so the medium ought to concern itself with how to sell its information.

“In the same way that railway companies fail when they forget they are in the transport business and think they are in railways so newspapers are not in the print business but in the information business.” Mr Free said electronics

would become a fact of life within the next five years. Already a data-bank link between New York and Australia could give information in minutes and at a low cost.

But in spite of the stiff competition from the instant and latest news and information offered as data-bank systems became widely available newspapers: would continue to grow.

“When television came along it affected radio a lot but radio went through a period of. readjustment and now it is a very powerful medium,” said Mr Free.

Members of the P.A.N.P.A. agreed that some trends were already clear. There was a strong trend against afternoon newspaper. In the United States, many cities arid towns could support lonly one newspaper. Metropolitan daily newspapers found that electronic information services presented . competition that they could not hope to equal. They were also hampered by costs of newsprint, ink, and delivery. However, in many parts of the world there was a new boom in local and suburban newspapers.

The president of the P.A.N.P.A. (Mr David Halliday) said that in Australia 'local papers, whether sold or given away and financed through advertising, were a much better business proposition than lage daily newspapers.

There was also a move away from general magazines to more specialist publications.

Members said that in the future there would be many more small, local newspapers. Large daily papers would be more in a magazine style similar to publications such as “Newsweek.” Other member did not agree with the conclusions.. Mr Michael Utting, general manager of the “Manly Daily,” Sydney, did not agree that electronic information services would be such strong competition for newspapers. “The average person does not want to know that much,” he said. “It will have an affect on newspapers but people won’t be that keen to pay even $lOO for the necessary attachments to their televisions.” Mr Utting said new technology would have some benefits for newspapers in spite of the doubts raised by the

almost year-long strike at "The Times.” Most Australian newspapers now were linked to a racing service called “Neddybank” which was run by the Australian Associated Press. That meant there was better racing coverage and a saving of about five jobs on each newspaper.

Mr Free said that a recent announcement that Australia could have a domestic satellite and that private companies could ha.e their own ground stations raised the possibility of simultaneous printing in two or more cities.

Problems of distribution could be eased by simultaneous printing only a few kilometres apart. City and suburbs editions', ‘ with more local news, would be possible. Mr Utting said that the use of colour in newspapers, although it was still expensive, ’ had to increase. The use of colour had increased by 700 per cent in America in recent years. Mr Carney estimated that circulation increased by at least 30 per cent when colour was introduced.

“Newspapers tht process colour will have a much better chance of survival in the future,” he said.