How will newspapers survive the digital revolution?

(A version of this story appeared in the Malay mail on the 26th February 2009.)

Some years ago I was invited to talk about publishing at a Rotary Club event at a downtown hotel. During the Q&A it was inevitable that the question of e-books should arise. My comments at that time were that it was still several years off.

First there was this question of technology, I said. Current screen resolutions were not good enough for reading many hours at a stretch, and internet access had to be much faster. Secondly there was the question of copyright -- authors and publishers would want to know how they'd get paid and how their rights would be protected before they allowed their books to be digitised. No one wanted a repeat of the music industry fiasco.

Now with the Kindle and its electronic paper making screen reading easier, and more companies offering broadband speed of 10mps at very affordable prices (except in Malaysia where one wonders if there is some sort of hidden policy to keep broadband speeds and internet penetration low, despite all the lip service), that day appears to be here.

But the Kindle costs USD 359.00 (appr RM 1300.00) with book downloads costing another USD 10.00 (appr RM 37.00) a pop. So is the Kindle likely to take off and replace the book? Probably not. It is a product looking for a market. Amazon thinks it has found one. But I don't think so. The Economist quotes Steve Kessel, a member of Amazon's Kindle team, "It's the convenience -- they think of a book and can be reading it within 60 seconds."

I can only say that Mr Kessel is not a serious reader. Only those hooked on bestsellers know exactly what they want to read next. Serious book buyers have little idea what they want to read until they see it while browsing the shelves. Most book buying is done on impulse. And seriously, I cannot imagine people who live from one bestseller to the next actually forking out RM1300.00 for an e-book reader. (I came across a 1932 Matsushita mission statement many years ago. It included this line: to make all products as inexhaustible and as cheap as tap water. When that happens to Kindle, it will be another story.)

When the iPod first came out, it filled a need that many had. Like me, there were many people out there with large CD collections. But they could play them only one at a time sequentially, and could only take a few with them when they travelled. The iPod changed everything by making it possible to bring along your entire CD collection in your pocket wherever you went, and play the songs in whatever order you wanted. The online buying thing came about much later. Even today, 90% of all iPod capacity is filled from own CD collections.

While the Kindle may not be the answer yet, I think digital media would still be the way to go for reading the news. I still read the daily papers, mostly out of a 50-year habit than anything else. I will miss the funnies otherwise, and some of my favourite columnists. (Talking of which, I was quite pleased at the news of Dato' Johan Jaafar being appointed a director of the NSTP and the chairman of Media Prima Bhd. Congratulations, Dato' and all the best. I don't necessarily agree with all his views but I know he reads and thinks before he writes. That article he wrote after March 8 was priceless. I saw him on that general elections show, and I thought he looked frightfully uncomfortable. When I turned on my laptop I realised why.) But my news comes mostly through the internet every morning.

With more and more news being consumed via smart phones and other mobile devices, newswires are now increasingly going to the consumer directly. Bloomberg has had over one million downloads for its iPhone version. Reuters too is offerings its stories directly to the consumer on advertisement-financed websites. In 2008, only 25% of AP's revenue came from newspapers compared to 55% in 1985. Traditionally, newswires have been wholesalers and the newspapers their retailers who repackaged the news before they sold it.

So will newspaper survive? That is a big if, after print media consuming dinosaurs like me pass on. Circulations are tumbling all over the world. Many are closing down. It costs less to advertise in the e-media than in print. Most newspapers have internet editions that they give away for free. (Sorry, the subscription model does not work.) In the same issue of The Economist, Norman Pearlstine of Bloomberg says mobile users are willing to pay for ring tones, so why not for news? Here's why: ring tones are extensions of the ego. One uses them repeatedly for a long time until one gets tired of it. News remains news for a very short time. And there is no associated ego trip.

I think newspapers will be around for a while yet. I hope so. (I sure will miss Blondie, otherwise.) But they do need to take a new look at the entire model, for fear of becoming irrelevant. Maybe the print and digital media can co-exist.
 
Maybe the word is not 'can', it is 'should'.