Future of print newspapers laid out in stark terms

As interviews given by media executives go, it was frank: Peter Vandermeersch, chief executive of Irish Independent publisher Mediahuis Ireland, told RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week programme that daily printed newspapers would disappear within the next decade.

This was not a surprising remark given the long pattern of circulation declines – exacerbated by some retailers’ view that print is fully dead already – as well as the recent flagging of a “more radical digital shift” by the European media group’s chief executive Gert Ysebaert. But it was stark all the same.

Across the Belgium-headquartered group, a programme known as Digital-only 2030 is under way and Mediahuis Ireland’s 350 editorial staff have been told to prepare for it. Although the wider group will “probably” continue to produce Saturday, Sunday or weekly newspapers, the life expectancy of the printed product from Monday to Friday is not very long at all, it seems.

The Mediahuis Ireland boss sounded agnostic on the subject of print’s demise after centuries in the sun – the important thing was that journalism survives, he said. This is true. But the disappearance of the medium midweek will not be without its knock-on effects on journalism, making it difficult to completely separate the fate of one from the fate of the other.

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Even when printing-related costs can be taken out of the equation, Mediahuis Ireland needs to increase its 70,000 digital subscriber tally quite a lot to fund its journalism in a digital-only era – its existing two-year target of 100,000 might not be enough, Vandermeersch bluntly stated. The combined Irish and Sunday Independent digital product is a strong one, notwithstanding the obvious squeeze on journalistic resources. But each additional subscriber will be hard won and harder, still, to keep.

The company is seeking an apparently unfixed number of voluntary redundancies. Although it sold its last remaining printing plant in Ireland last year, it will still employ some staff whose skills are mainly print-based. Vandermeersch, meanwhile, said he was most worried about the future of “endangered” regional newspapers. Mediahuis Ireland has 12 of them.

The publisher has already moved beyond the pain of closing once-prized printing plants that would soon have struggled for viability anyway. It has expanded further into the world of digital marketplaces over the past year, lessening its dependence on news for revenues. But, as is undoubtedly also the case for other newspaper groups including the one you are reading right now, tough times still lie ahead.