World Press Trends

Trust is the new currency for success

The report, published by WAN-IFRA on the occasion of IFRA/DCX Expo in Berlin, analyses the data collected from WAN-IFRA’s annual survey of more than 70 countries, in addition to the insights and data from its global data partners.

Two years ago was a watershed moment in the news media industry when a fundamental shift in the business model took place: reader revenue became the biggest source of revenue for news publishers. This year’s survey re-enforces that trend as 56 percent of newspapers’ overall revenue came from circulation sales (print and digital) in 2016.

And the driving force in that trend toward building loyal audiences with high-quality journalism is no doubt trust, the report finds. The decline in trust is the biggest risk we face as an industry, and all our efforts must be with the aim of getting it back. We used to trade in attention. But trust is our new currency. Any decline in trust erodes the foundation of our business: credible, first-rate journalism.”

WAN-IFRA’s report is focused on three themes: trust, followed by “from reach to relationships” and “advertising rebooted,” featuring the global and regional data and insights that have come to be expected in the annual report. But this year it features new traffic insights from global data partner Chartbeat.

Here are some of the findings to consider...

Global digital circulation revenues grew by 28 percent (YoY), and a full 300 percent from 2012- 2016, with the trend expected to continue.
Reader revenue now makes up about 30 percent of total digital revenue.
Despite that, total global newspaper revenues fell 2.1 percent in 2016 from a year earlier, and are down 7.8 percent over the last five years.
Print still makes up the vast majority of that audience revenue, and continues to grow – up by over 3 percent over the past 5 years.
We estimate that in 2016, print’s share of total revenues was 91.6 percent, down from 95.1 percent in 2012.
Print advertising revenue continued its decline, 8 percent over the previous period and down 26.8 percent over the past five years.
Digital advertising grew by 5% from 2015 to 2016, highlighting the ongoing challenge publishers face to generate not just more digital revenues but also new revenue streams to offset print losses.

Despite the increasing focus on reader revenue and the overwhelming domination of digital advertising by Internet giants, publishers have opportunities to carve out more of the ad pie by forming alliances and leveraging their high-quality brand environments.

WAN-IFRA’s global data partners include Zenith, Ipsos, Chartbeat and PwC, national associations and contributors. The report is also supported by technology partner, CCI.

The report is available for download (free to WAN-IFRA members; charge for non-members): http://www.wan-ifra.org/wpt_2017

WORLD PRESS TRENDS DATABASE

World Press Trends has been published by WAN-IFRA since 1989. The data is compiled in an interactive database and this an annual report, both available to WAN-IFRA members without charge. For non-members, WAN-IFRA offers the database by individual access, on an annual subscription basis, and IP access that allows companies, universities or libraries to provide access to any number of users. Full details can be found at http://www.wan-ifra.org/wpt.

WORLD NEWS PUBLISHERS OUTLOOK

The World News Publishers Outlook was published this year as part of the World Press Trends family of products. It draws on insights from a study conducted by the Innovation Research Group led by Dr François Nel of the University of Central Lancashire & Dr Coral Millburn of the University of Oxford working in collaboration with WAN-IFRA. The study sheds light on what executives at the world’s most profitable media companies expect to be doing more of in contrast to less profitable companies.

Whatever else they are investing in, executives in companies that are growing are not prioritising ad-supported media – including social media. As their future seems to hinge on reader revenue, at least for the foreseeable future, mobile and other revenue streams like e-commerce are attractive.

They see the greatest obstacles to future development in the reluctance to innovate. What questions should we be asking ourselves if the single biggest risk to our future success is not from the outside, but lurking inside our organisations – a reluctance to innovate?

DOWNLOADS

Download the World Press Trends 2017 slide deck at the following link World Press Trends Slide Deck on Slideshare

For a full analysis, please see the World Press Trends online database and latest Report: World Press Trends Report and Database

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