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New York Times CEO Mark Thompson says he expects the end of the physical newspaper in 20 years:
The New York Times was founded in 1851, but it would surprise outgoing CEO Mark Thompson if the physical paper made it to 2040.
"I believe the Times will definitely be printed for another 10 years and quite possibly another 15 years — maybe even slightly more than that," Thompson told CNBC's A View from the Top. "I would be very surprised if it's printed in 20 years' time."
More than 900,000 people subscribe to the print version of the newspaper, said Thompson. At its current subscriber levels, the paper could be printed seven days a week at a profit without a single advertisement, he said.
But as readers become more accustomed to reading the Times on smartphones, tablets and computers each year, a printed paper is clearly a dying form. The New York Times Company reported last quarter that total digital revenue exceeded print revenue for the first time ever. Print advertising fell more than 50% year over year from last quarter, driven by both secular declines and the pandemic. Thompson told CNBC he doubts that advertising will ever come back.
"I'm skeptical about whether it will recover to where it was during 2019 levels," Thompson said. "It was already in year-over-year decline for many years. I think that decline is probably inexorable."
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:01PM (7 children)
If you hadn't bought a newspaper 20 years ago, I would place you as ignorant and self-centered. Lots of people like you in your age group. Not taking an interest in the politics that go on around you. And now you reap the fruits of your ignorance. Hope you enjoy your lockdowns.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:17PM (2 children)
20 years ago. For the math-challenged among us, that was the year 2000. 20 years ago, I didn't buy very many newspapers, either. I mean, it was very rare for me to pick one up - maybe a headline caught my eye. There was news on the radio, news on television, and, we were experiencing that relatively new internet thing. True, the internet has evolved quite a lot in twenty years, but the major news sources were on the web back then. You overstate your case, as if 20 years ago was 1970, or even 1940. Remember the advent of CNN? I don't recall ever seeing a newspaper published by CNN. Not even a magazine! They've always been television and internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:41PM (1 child)
Back when CNN was still a news organization, they never covered state and local news, for example. For that, and learning about local events (remember those?), you would pick up a copy of the paper. In those days, Craigslist didn't exist yet, so that's how you found jobs and junk for sale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @01:06AM
Horseshit. Twenty years ago we all used the Tradin' Post to find junk for sale. Classifieds have been dead since the 80s.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ledow on Wednesday August 12 2020, @07:48AM (2 children)
Because someone reading a trash tabloid opinion piece in The Sun or The Daily Mail is going to be better informed than someone who actually sat, looked up people's history, politician's declarations of interest, used resources from all over the world from their university Internet account and broadband connection (we were WAY ahead of most families), contacted and discussed politics in open forums back when IRC was mature and not filled with bots, spam and porn, followed international news from first-party accounts and foreign news agencies, etc.?
Yeah, okay. What an idiot I must be.
I graduated in 2000, by the way, which is why I chose that date. On a CS course from the leading London university, that I mostly got content and submitted coursework to via my home Internet connection, which was fast enough to run 4 PCs and had evolved since my schools days from modem to broadband. I literally RAN sites of my own where such things were discussed, not to mention having the antiquated-by-then Usenet and IRC forums. You know 9/11 happened in 2001, right? I don't know about you but I caught wind of it on a TV that happened to be interrupted with live footage, then caught up very quickly with online video, and spent three days doing nothing but talking to Americans about it, researching who the attackers were, etc. to the point that I had news-fatigue where every website I went on (including the predecessor of this site) was running better and more accurate and up-to-date and in-depth analysis of it than the news channels were, who were just repeating the same soundbites and reshowing the same footage.
I watched all the American channels, from the other side of the Atlantic, as well as local coverage, and even that of the Middle Eastern states. I read articles from countries all over the world, I read people talk of their own experience and dedicate articles to their family's memories after becoming victim to the attacks. I read the concerns of those in the Middle East of massive over-retaliation against a splinter terrorist group, which is exactly what happened. I read up on the history of the Taliban, of Bin Laden, of weapons deals with the Middle East, religious differences, guerrilla funding by first-world nations, etc.
You seem to think it was the dark ages. I'd actually argue that if you're getting your news from papers (even the BBC News website is often DAYS behind on stories) that you're out-of-touch, deliberately picking a biased-towards-your-view cut-out of the world, and are relying on other people to cherry-pick your stories for you with little to no regard to what's actually happening in the world, getting a rounded view, or putting in any effort at all, whatsoever. And not in a "MSM sucks!?!?!" Trump-ish kind of way, but just in a "Are you deliberately seeking the full picture, or did you just believe the editor who is as far right/left as you want them to be?"
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 12 2020, @01:31PM
In the long ago before time when Google was a bouncing baby search engine, they had a section called "News." They discontinued it, though, probably because as you scanned down the headlines from New York to South Carolina to LA to Seattle they were all the same, and obviously copied & pasted from the same AP Wire feed.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday August 13 2020, @12:55AM
In the early 2000s I too mostly got my national news through the internet but I will say that one thing I miss is buying a local paper from the machine outside my favorite restaurant, ordering my usual, and spending a nice quiet lunch reading the newspaper and then leaving it for anyone else who wanted it. At my favorite coffee shop, the paper was put out and customers would share it -- some small talk like would ensue -- "are you finished with that section" and stuff like that.
Over time the local paper got thinner and then even the pages got physically smaller -- it got to the point where there wasn't enough in it to last a whole lunch time and what was there, was just AP reprints of headlines I'd already seen on my computer. Local news became close to nothing so eventually I just went to squinting at a phone.
There were some nice things about a real newspaper though and it is sad in a way that those days are gone. The writing was less ideological too. That's also gone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @11:02AM
20 years ago we had this new fangled Internet. I remember using things like Yahoo! News - cutting edge. I wanted to buy subscription to local newspaper. They were ahead of times and they actually provided subscription with a caveat - you also HAD TO get the print. And subscription from local news was like $30/mo, like regular. But if you were out of local delivery area, it became $5/mo... Needless to say, they never got my business. Today they are in trouble, still trying to peddle printed subscription though for last few months they have "digital only" for $4/week. But today I just subscribe to NYT for $5/month instead.
So yes, I'm also 40 years old and the only thing paper I ever subscribed to was a monthly magazine. Even that today would only be good as a PDF instead. And with PDF, I can annotate and write all over it without screwing up the original version. Even flyers I only look at the PDF version or the store app on my phone for deals. Heck, even my local library has paperless access to current newspapers as ePub download. Paper news is out for almost everything.