Subscription-based models for newspapers and consumer magazines might not be enough to halt a fall in readership, according to PwC.
PwC's annual Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook report shows digital newspaper advertising forecast to decline from 2014 by 5.9% to $700 million by 2023, while print newspaper advertising will drop 20% to $450 million.
The analysis also warns that subscription-based models aren’t enough to offset the decline in print readership, despite it expected to have slight growth in the future.
PwC says media companies have to continue to consolidate brands and products, introduce more integrated content models, as well as new payment models, to survive.
According to the report, print advertising will drop by 20% from 2014 to 2023, while circulation is expected to decline 6% over the same period.
Meanwhile, digital advertising will fall by 5.9% from 2014 to 2023 but circulation is expected to increase by 11.4%.
Last year, the newspaper sector was valued at $2.961 billion and is forecast to decline to $2.147 billion by 2023.
Justin Papps, PwC Australia Partner and Entertainment & Media Outlook Editor, says newspapers are getting back to the core of what they do -- quality storytelling.
"We really should call this news media not newspapers," he told AdNews. "Because even the newspapers themselves don't really talk about themselves as the mastheads anymore. They talk about their news media opportunities across different platforms."
He pointed to News Corp's Hedley Thomas whose latest Walkley Award was for a podcast, The Teacher’s Pet, that reached 45 million people.
"It's great from a journalist point of view that there's a way to do long-form storytelling that's really catching people's imagination," says Papps.
PwC’s graph looking at circulation compared to advertising revenue
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