Newspapers Making Money

[milly143]

How do Newspapers make any money? You can buy The Sun for 20p most days (yes, I know, why would you want to, etc etc) but it must cost them significantly more than that to produce it once you take all costs into account. Do they survive off advertising fees?

[ChuckFickens]

Yes.

[ChuckFickens]

To add to that a little :)

I used to work for the local paper round here and the cover price of the paper just about covered the distribution costs of the paper from the press to the outlets, all other costs are covered by the advertising revenue.

[mccfluff]

not even that any more Chuck, things are not good in the regional press :-(

[milly143]

lol, thanks Chuck. It must cost a fortune to advertise in them.

[ChuckFickens]

I know....

that's why I don't work for them any more, they started slimming down the department I worked in so I got out while I could, then about a year later all the people I worked with got made redundant.

Regional press in the paper sense is dying a death and unless the publishers can put together a working on-line presence then they will go under too.

[ChuckFickens]

Milly, a full pager colour ad in a national will cost in excess of £30k and even in a local paper you would be looking at £5k + for a full page.

[mccfluff]

nah chuck its about £1700 for full page colour

[milly143]

Do you think they will start charging for online access? Or reducing they content of what is published online?

[ChuckFickens]

Hmmm, I may well be remembering the cost for multiple publication coverage (i.e. in the main daily local paper and in all the relevant weeklies too)

It has been a long time since worked for the local rag though and I was in newspaper sales so it wasn't really my department :)

[ChuckFickens]

It's possible they may charge for on-line access, there are already "papers" designed to be downloaded onto the Ipad that are charged for on a subscription basis.

[mccfluff]

well yeah if you went across the five publications it would cost you that, but mainly those who take out full page colour are national and they have agreed rates in place :-(

you know when the reps get a wrap, its cakes all round....

[AB Editor]

The Sun is a funnel for Murdoch to push people onto Sky - it can run at a loss because Sky (and sky sports in particular) makes them a decent wedge.

[ChuckFickens]

I'm taking a wild guess here..... you work for a local rag too :)

(I used to work for newsquest essex)

[milly143]

Oh, I see. So The Sun is just a slice of pie that's being supported by the other slices.

Do you work for a paper Fluff?

[mccfluff]

a&n media aka northcliffe