US: Jump in newspaper sales a revival or a last gasp for the industry?

Posted by Rosemary D'Amour on November 7, 2008 at 10:15 AM

By now the world knows who was elected the 44th US President - they may have found out online or followed television coverage throughout election night. However, the following morning, it was newsstands that made the headlines, selling more copies of newspapers than had ever been sold previously.

While publishers realized that there would be an increased demand, they didn't realize how much. Major newspapers were forced to rapidly order more copies, selling out in the early morning. Is this a sign of things to come for the print business, or is it just a sign of the significance of the election and nothing more?

Tom Kelly, vice president of circulation at USA Today, called print the "hero" of the election story, hoping that there would be "some carry over" in distribution rates following the election.

History shows that dramatic and tragic events, such as September 11, push up newspaper sales. However, Obama's election incited "just as strong a response from the public, even those who increasingly get their news from the Internet," said newspaper industry analyst John Morton. He likened the increase in newspaper sales on November 5, 2008 to the demand seen at the end of World War II.

The "bottom line," according to Morton, is that the record sales on Wednesday won't "save the newspaper industry."

What the events of Wednesday prove, however, is that there is a "unique value to print," according to Steve Hills, The Washington Post Media's president and general manager.

"There is an authority and finality, a sort of last word that comes from the printed edition of the newspaper," Hills told the L.A.Times.

Newspapers are "tangible and material, unlike the Internet, which is fleeting," said Dave Solomon, the vice president of The Telegraph of Nashua, New Hampshire.

People grabbed multiple copies from the shelves, some to give to friends and relatives, some to keep for scrapbooks or pass on to their children or grandchildren. The general feeling, most said, was that a newspaper acts as a sort of physical proof of history that the Internet or television cannot provide, a lasting memento that you can hold in your hand, that ages as you do.

Sources: LA Times , Deseretnews , San Francisco Chronicle