Daily printed newspapers will disappear within next decade, says Mediahuis Ireland boss

Daily printed newspapers will disappear within the next decade, Mediahuis Ireland chief executive Peter Vandermeersch said on Sunday.

Employees of the Irish Independent publisher were told last week that the company is starting the process of moving from a hybrid digital-print publisher to a digital-only one.

“That is a process that can take 10 years but it is clear that in the 20s – in this decade – many printed newspapers will disappear,” he told RTÉ's This Week programme.

Asked by presenter Justin McCarthy if printed newspapers have a future, Mr Vandermeersch said: “To be honest, and to say it as the CEO of a printing company, I don’t think so.”

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It is clear that local newspapers are “endangered”, he said, noting that its weekly title The Kerryman sells 6,000 to 8,000 copies, while the Irish Independent has a Saturday circulation of 100,000.

The group, which is currently seeking voluntary redundancies from its 350-strong editorial workforce, plans to feature more local journalism on its national websites, which it already does in Belgium, he said.

The European news publisher, which is headquartered in Antwerp, has a group-wide programme known as “Digital-only 2030″, under which it is preparing to phase out weekday printed newspapers across its six markets. The publisher will “probably” continue to print a Saturday, Sunday or weekly product, he said.

“Whether it is 2029 or 2032, well, that’s not clear, obviously,” Mr Vandermeersch said of the timeframe involved.

While Mediahuis Ireland does not have a specific plan in action for phasing out print, its decision last September to sell its last remaining printing plant in Ireland – in Newry – and move to completely contract out printing to third parties, including The Irish Times, can be taken as a sign of its intentions, he indicated.

“We don’t have a printing plant in Ireland any more, so that’s quite a sign. It’s not a strategic asset for our company to have a printing plant. Are we planning it? Well, we’re not kind of pushing people away from print. The Sunday Independent is still reaching hundreds of thousands of people, so that’s good, and as long as people want to read print, we will be there to provide it.”

The news media executive said he would only worry about journalism disappearing, not about print vanishing: “As long as journalism is there, I am a very happy executive.”

However, Mediahuis Ireland’s target to build its digital subscriber base from about 70,000 at present to 100,000 by 2025 is probably not ambitious enough, he said.

The Irish titles only began introducing paywalls in February 2020, six months after Mediahuis completed its takeover of the company previously known as Independent News & Media (INM).

Mediahuis Ireland, which also counts the Sunday World and the Belfast Telegraph among its print titles, does not have a target for how many people will depart under its redundancy programme, while the viability of the wider company is not in question, Mr Vandermeersch said.

“We have a revenue of almost €1 billion and we make €150 million in operating profits, so the present is really good. We want to prepare ourselves for the future, for the next three, four, five years.”

In February, Mediahuis group chief executive Gert Ysebaert said a large group of readers were remaining loyal to the printed newspaper, but ensuring continuity of delivery in an era of high inflation was becoming increasingly challenging for the company.

“The media world is transforming at an unprecedented speed, driven by technological innovations such as artificial intelligence, as well as changing consumer behaviour,” Mr Ysebaert said.

“All this means that, more than ever, we need to anticipate an even more radical digital shift.”