Newspapers won't save the news industry in Italy, according to an analysis published by the Italian online paper Linkiesta.

For some newspapers 2010 was a depressing year: out of 56 papers analysed by Ads (Accertamenti Diffusione Stampa), there was an overall drop in readership of 5,1%, or 250 000 copies. Looking at the 26 newspapers with circulation above 50,000 copies, the drop is higher: - 6,2%, the article reported.

Bad news come also from the biggest names: Corriere della Sera lost 8,7% of its readership in a year, La Repubblica lost 8%, and il Sole 24 Ore 8,6%.

The Italian press hasn't only experienced a drop in circulation, but also in advertising. Citing Nielsen data, the article reported that after very negative results in 2009, advertising has started to grow in 2010 but the increase hasn't affected the printed press. Ad revenues had a 6% increase in the TV market and went up 20,1% online, while regarding the press they steadily decreased by 4,3%.

There were two trends underlined by the article: on one hand, the press loses a piece of its market every year, and on the other hand its readership gets inexorably older. The spiral of "less copies - less advertising" is worsened by TV and Web competition. The traditional publishing industry becomes even more marginal.

But despite some new initiatives, Italy is also experiencing a significant delay in investing in online-only news enterprises.

The sole exception in the Italian panorama seems to be the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano (whose data are missing from table), which closed the 2010 with a net profit of €5,823,027, Adnkronos reported (via Democity) according to the publisher Editoriale Il Fatto. Good results come also from the recently launched website.

Linkiesta's article highlighted similarities between the Italian situation and that in the US, looking at Pew's "State of the News Media 2011", which was recently released.
In that it was stated that spending on online advertising has surpassed that on print for the first time but much of that, however, continues to go to places other than news sites. As online news organizations cannot rely on advertising, in order to find economic sustainability they also need to find some alternative way to charge for content and to create new revenue streams, the report said.

Two Italian journalists have recently published an analysis about the future scenario of the digital news. Journalism is changing with an unprecedented speed. "Digital era is that of the convergence", they wrote "but is the functions are converging, devices are not". Saying that - they continued - journalists should be able to adapt the news to each device, bearing in mind the characteristics of its public and of its utilization.

Integration is the key point, even if there is not just one unique model for it, but rather different solutions adopted by foreign media outlets like the BBC or the Daily Telegraph. Italy, however, has been reluctant to adapt itself to the new integration diktat, the article said.

Basically, the journalists concluded, the integration that is real fundamental is above all that of brains.

No matter how many devices the paper is published on, from a value point of view, the "journalism" is still one product and every section of the newsroom should cooperate to produce it.

Sources: Linkiesta, Repubblica, Adnkronos (via Democity)
Table source: Linkiesta