Around the world, newspapers seem to be facing imminent extinction, as a mass exodus to the internet causes their circulation to slump and their advertising revenue to collapse. But not in India.
In the West, young people have largely dispensed with the home-delivered physical morning newspaper and instead catch up on the news whenever they choose, using tablets, laptops, or mobile phones. As advertising revenue has been vacuumed up by the internet giants Facebook and Google, newspaper profits have plunged. The industry has faced many bankruptcies in recent years, with those still operating often having laid off large numbers of staff, especially in their foreign bureaus. In the United States, the number of full-time journalists has dropped by 20 percent since 2001.
Even several grand titles have either closed down or publish only online. Cyberspace is, after all, where the eyeballs are. Yet, while some well-known newspapers — such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian — have developed a robust internet presence themselves, it is not enough. In the Guardian's case, the site receives an impressive 38 million unique visitors per day, compared to a print circulation of just 200,000 copies. But those online visitors read for free, leaving the Guardian hemorrhaging money. It doesn't help that web advertising revenues — which, for most newspapers, account for only 10-15 percent of total revenues — can't compete with the print-ad revenues of the past.
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