PricewaterhouseCoopers who I know of as a huge accounting firm also are one of the largest advisory consultants in Australia. They claim that they do work for 90 of the ASX top 100 listed companies, 704 companies of the IBIS top 1,000 and many federal and state government agencies this includes the newspapers and magazines companies.
So I think you will find this interview address interesting too, as I did. Please click here to hear him.
Interview by Paul McNab Industry Leader Technology and Entertainment & Media
What I noticed is he is talking of newspapers as being progressive with their move to online and advertising. There is nothing about what we would call newspapers.
To me, the most interesting part of this report is the economic section which you will find here.
Note where it states the biggest newspaper companies revenue is advertising which is they expect to grow by 3.5% yearly.
Conversely, the estimated circulation revenue growth that concerns us is only at 1% a year mainly as they see the discounting as slowing down, circulation steady and cover prices going up. This is sort of what we have seen. To us, steady is acceptable although obviously, a strong growth would be nicer.
This reinforces the message I heard at the last ANF conference. We certainly need the publishers but we must realise that they are gradually growing in a different direction to newsagents and newsagents to grow are going to have to move elsewhere.
I think you can take this interview and report as what the major publishers think! Enjoy!
