US: Positive forecast for newspaper industry

 
Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com and Kara Swisher, Wall Street Journal technology columnist, both pointed out that newspapers are still profitable, though their lack of growth worries investors.

Further, Schiller is optimistic about youth readership, though it will likely stay online. “I hate this question about kids not reading newspapers. The fact is, when you ask where they get their news, they invariably respond ‘The NewYorkTimes.com or CNN.’ So it’s the professional media still count.”

What about newspaper relationships with search engines? Swisher said, “Google is a parasite, but it’s a helpful parasite.” Schiller said NYTimes.com loves Google. “It’s introduced a whole new class of readers. It does bring in traffic. On the friend or enemy, we fall on the friend side.”

Topix.net founder and CEO Rich Skrenta said the site has turned to hyperlocal content as newspapers have edged away from it. “We’re not approaching this from a J-school perspective - if a new restaurant opens, we define that as news,” he said. “If there’s 20 cop cars in front of a local business, that’s news right there. We focus on things that people find relevant, although it would be considered to small for a major publication in some cases.”

Perhaps Topix fills a niche smaller newspapers could squeeze into?

Source: Paid Content