Stop The Press - 3

In the course of doing this blog and other things through the internet, one thing that has surprised me is the degree not just of interest but also emotional attachment to Mallorca, be it the island or its individual towns and resorts, such as Puerto Alcúdia or Puerto Pollensa. The internet makes what was just the once-a-year, distant holiday destination, an all-year, close-at-hand companion. For the resident, the internet is no longer a mystery but a fact of everyday life that has become non-generational in terms of use; it is a standard news, information and entertainment medium.

If one takes the example of this blog alone, the diffusion has staggered me. While there is substantial interest locally, there are also regular readers from the UK, Germany, the US, Ireland, Australia, Scandinavia. One could go on.

The debate surrounding the provision of news and newspapers over the internet has been brought into sharper relief by the general decline in advertising revenue caused by recession. Temporary though this is, the activities of Google have also made newspaper publishers stop and wonder as to the wisdom of a business model which has allowed free access in the hope of generating advertising revenues to compensate. Certain newspapers, and the "Financial Times" is a prime example, have probably got it right by establishing a mix of "free-to-air" and "pay-per-view" or subscription.

The local media seems torn. While "The Diario" and its suite of publications are freely available, the Grup Serra company, which publishes "The Bulletin", offers only a partial reproduction and limited archiving. One can understand this. If one considers the circulation figures from yesterday's piece, the intuitive view would be that these could be substantially reduced through full and free publication on the internet. Chances are there would, very quickly, be no newspaper.

Wherever one stands on this debate, when one considers the smallness of the local markets, especially the British, but then takes account of the vastly greater international readership (or potential readership) via the internet, how sustainable is the print copy of any local paper? Print is expensive; it is also inflexible and demanding of lead times. It is anachronistic.

But. There remains the aesthetic attachment to the print copy. Much as the internet offers convenience, for many the physical paper is more convenient, more mobile and simply more pleasing. There is also a mentality issue when it comes to advertisers. An advert in a paper is some form of physical proof. The internet is somehow out of sight, and mobile-phone delivery even more so. The sophistication of the advertiser and indeed the market needs to be considered; and the local market, especially that comprising some Mallorcans, is still not that sophisticated.

Nevertheless, the advance of technologies does draw into question the viability of the print medium; for short-run and small-circulation publications if not for high-volume dailies such as "The Sun". The creation of an alternative business model is not easy, but the greatest obstacle to doing so lies, I believe, in the thought process of publishers. To now, newspapers via the internet have, by and large, been reproductions, and the worst horrors are those that actually have the paper, page by page, for one to flick through. The thinking is wrong. The publisher has to start with a mindset that he is no longer producing a newspaper; he has to completely re-conceptualise what his or her business actually is.

And the small-circulation publications are probably in a better position to do this than the major newspapers. Why do I say this? You know, and this may be frustrating, but I'm not going to tell you. And the reason is that I may want to do it myself. Sorry about that. But as this series has been called "Stop The Press", that is about the size of it. Stop the print presses.


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