Tag: News Corp

Old newshound investigates digital news

digital-media-classifieds
Image: Bob checks out Pravda on his Chinese smart phone – the go anywhere world

I think I already knew that 80% of Australians were dependent on digital news. Last week I was asked to give a talk at a business breakfast on ‘The past and future of newspapers’. It was a bit of a revelation, drawing on historical data and reflecting on my experience as a regional journalist in the early 1980s. At the time, the old technology (Linotype, lithography, telex, hand subbing) was making way for the computer revolution.

Prior to the mid-1980s, newspapers had an absolute monopoly over classified advertising. If you wanted to sell a car, employ someone, rent a house. hold a garage sale or post a death notice, the classifieds were the only option and they were not cheap.

The supremacy of what Rupert Murdoch once called ‘the rivers of gold’ started faltering, first with competition from specialist trade magazines and then from the fast-developing Internet.

Some brave journalists – call them early adopters – set out to start up their own newspapers. They worked from home and used desktop publishing. Their free newspapers offered ‘classies’ at heavily discounted prices and disrupted the business plan of media giants. The common response was to buy out the upstarts and shut them down.

Once the Internet began to gather momentum, advertisers started to find cheaper ways to sell things. Free on-line markets like Ebay further eroded the traditional profits of newspapers. The big media owners started to buy on-line businesses to compete on both levels. The resulting domination of digital media media advertising, mainly Facebook, has led, in this decade (2010-2021) in particular, to an accelerated decline in print newspapers.

For example, Rupert Murdoch’s once-dominant Herald Sun in Melbourne has come back to the pack. Last week Crikey did a bit of homework on the newspaper’s falling circulation figures (from a peak of 600,000 in 1990). Crikey discovered that the Herald-Sun had fallen to fourth place among News Corp’s Australian mastheads. It also lost its No 1 spot overall behind Nine’s The Age.

As of June 30, the Herald Sun had tumbled to 146,026 subscribers across print and digital products, according to internal figures reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Crikey’s Christopher Warren, who, during better times in newspapers, was president of the journalists’ union, wrote:

“The ‘Don’t read the Herald-Sun’ campaigners will be eager to claim credit for the masthead’s fall. They’ve been targeting the paper for its critical coverage of Melbourne’s 2020 lock-down.” 

This subscriber-only article prompted much comment on social media from Melbourne folk who apparently do not rate the Herald Sun. Mohamed Mohideen said on Facebook, “Most times they give it free in many places just to say they have a big circulation.

I use it for my cat litter.”

Global data and analytics company Nielsen says 80% of Australians turned to digital news and apps to stay informed in the June 2021 quarter. The total time spent peaked at 1.6 million hours on May 27, when the Victoria Government announced a seven-day lockdown. The next highest, 1.5 million hours, was on June 27, on the first day of the NSW Government lockdown.

Nielsen says the increase was primarily driven by news content consumed on mobile devices. The average daily time spent increased in June by 12%, compared to the same month in 2020. These figures, drawn from a Nielsen press release, are as much as the company is prepared to share. Because of a stalemate with IAB Australia, the trade association controlling on-line advertising, Nielsen stopped making the data public in January and has so far not resumed.

Nevertheless, the Internet being what it is, someone posted the June 2021 ratings on Twitter.

The June data showed ABC on-line in No 1 position with 12.83 ‘unique’ viewers, followed by news.com.au (11.72m), Nine (10.63m), 7News (9.45m) and The Guardian (6.71m) in fifth spot.

News Corp decided back in late 2017 to opt out of Australia’s system of measuring daily circulation, as reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Since then, media analysts and commentators have had to rely on emerging surveys by data companies including Nielsen and Roy Morgan.

Media and marketing website Mumbrella commented that by withdrawing from the Audited Media Association of Australia, News dealt a near fatal blow to the future of print circulation audits in Australia.

News Corp said at the time advertisers should now look to Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (EMMA), which was created by the newspaper industry in 2013 to promote readership numbers, rather than circulation, as the key metric.

Eight years later, (EMMA) was ditched in favour of Roy Morgan’s ‘Total News’ metric.

The first release of Total News readership figures produced by Roy Morgan show that cross platform news reached 97% of the population aged 14+ (20.4 million) in the year to June 30, 2021.
Print (and digital) news saw a 6% increase, compared to the same period last year, now reaching 14.1 million people aged 14+.
Of the 20.4m readers, 1.3 million read newspaper print editions only; 12.8m consumed digital and print and 6.3m digital only.

When you read about the inevitable shift to digital media, it is hard to know how media owners will convince people to pay for it. According to the Australian National University’s Digital News Report 2021, the percentage of people paying for on-line news (13%) has changed little since 2020.  Of the non-payers, only 12% say they are likely to pay in the next 12 months. Only a third of Australians are aware that news outlets are less profitable than a decade ago or are concerned about it.

News Corp’s decision in 2020 to rationalise 112 regional titles across Australian has had ongoing ramifications. According to The Guardian, 20 of the regional papers owned by News Corp have been absorbed into the on-line editions of News Corp’s subscriber-only metropolitan newspapers.

Other cost-cutting measures include a decision to no longer deliver print newspapers to far flung regional Queensland (affecting Mt Isa, Longreach, Charters Towers, Emerald and towns in the State’s south-west).

PwC’s Entertainment and Media Outlook Report 2021 says that even before the pandemic, all major publishers were looking towards a predominantly digital news future to compensate for the loss of print circulation and print advertising revenue. Printed circulation revenue dropped by 6.7% in 2020 to A$735 million, and print advertising revenue fell 24% to $882 million.

As the report observed: “All major publishers leaned into rapid transformation and a shift to a a digital world.”

So here’s this week’s homework: are you a NO (newspaper only), a NAD (newspaper and digital) or a DO (digital only). Perhaps you may even be an NRN (never read newspapers). Do tell.

Here’s a few insights into the habits of digital newspaper readers, 54% of whom consume news over breakfast or on the daily commute:

  • 45% use mobile phones as the main device for reading news;
  • 27% of newspaper readers typically read 7+ issues per week;
  • 40% of newspaper readers spend 30 minutes or more reading;
  • 60% spend less than half an hour reading;
  • 10% actually pay for their on-line subscription;
  • 56% of Gen Z (aged 6-24) get their news from social media.

Alarmingly (well, I was alarmed), 10% of people over 75 get their news from social media. Let’s hope it’s not one of those obscure conspiracy-based outlets.

*I wrote about left handers a few weeks back. If you were trying to find the left handed guitar website, here it is: https://leftyfretz.com/

 More reading

 

 

 

Bushfires, Methane and the Climate Crisis

methane-climate-change
Nature’s resilience – regrowth in the fire-ravaged Cunningham’s Gap. Photo Laurel Wilson

You’d think those with an interest in promoting the climate crisis would have made more of James Murdoch quitting the family media business.

While there is much to be wary of when considering Murdoch Jnr’s defection, he did make it crystal clear that he and his wife Kathryn disagreed with News Corp’s climate agenda. The first real signs of family business friction emerged last year. James accused News Corp of promoting climate denialism during its coverage of last summer’s Australian bushfires.

University of Sydney professor Rodney Tiffen’s thorough examination of James Murdoch’s chequered history points out that it was James who first persuaded Rupert Murdoch (in 2006) to embrace the climate change cause. While Rupert soon drifted away, James remained committed. Tiffen makes a trenchant point, that Rupert’s conversion had little impact on the company’s journalism:

“Its upper editorial echelons contained a large number of climate denialists, and Rupert seems to have never made any effort to change their views.”

This is an interesting read if you want to be reminded of James Murdoch’s role in the UK phone hacking scandal and management of News Corp’s global satellite TV business.

Despite the claims about climate denialism within News Corp, its Australian flagship has kept up with the topic. You won’t be able to read about it unless you subscribe, but Erin Lyons filed a story on July 29 from a Senate inquiry headlined ‘Unequivocal link between extreme bushfires and climate crisis’.

I note with interest the use of language officially adopted by The Guardian to describe climate change as a ‘crisis’.

Lyons quoted Bureau of Meteorology chief executive Dr Andrew Johnson who said a rise in global emissions was driving up temperatures, which was likely to increase the risk of bushfires.

“Bushfires are starting earlier and ending later. There’s a climate signal in that,” he told the panel. “How that plays out in the future will very much depend on how humanity responds.”

Lyons followed up next day with a story about firefighters and bushfire survivors calling for the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage.

Almost on cue, the weather map showed the first signs of an early bushfire season, with large swathes of central Western Australia painted red for danger. In southern California, not all that far as the crow flies, the northern summer’s first forest fire forced thousands to flee their homes south of Los Angeles. Here we go again: “There’s always been bush fires.” (Climate change deniers drag out last year’s talking points). No, it’s because of the dangerous build-up of methane in the atmosphere. (Ed: He said, interpreting science, which is a danged dangerous thing for a journalist to do).

The thing is, such is the media pre-occupation with COVID-19 and the risks to Australian (and global) economies, the topic of climate change barely gets a look in. Allow me to fill in the gaps and maybe do a bit of fact checking while I’m here.

My attention was dragged back to this subject when reading a four paragraph filler in The Guardian about methane. Animal farming and fossil fuels have driven levels of the greenhouse gas to the highest on record, it stated. The Guardian cited the Methane Budget study, published by Earth System Science Data, which stated that discharges of methane gas have risen about 9% on the 2000-2006 average, to 600 million tonnes a year.

It’s no easy task, quantifying methane emissions, which occur naturally in wetlands and inland water sources, but also from biofuel, waste, coal mining, oil and gas production and agriculture. A global team of more than 90 researchers from 70 institutions contributed to this latest update. Ironically (well, I think it’s ironic), melting permafrost contributes to the release of methane.

The increase of atmospheric methane is important, in that its global warming potential is estimated to be up to 34 times higher than CO2 (over 100 years). That’s why you will see large-scale industrial plants like oil refineries burning off methane (converting it to CO2). Besides, methane build-up within an industrial complex can be quite lethal because of its explosive nature. Major oil companies including Shell and Exxon made commitments several years ago to cut methane emissions by up to 15%. (I read that 2018 report in The Australian, while fruitlessly searching the database to see if it had published anything about the Methane Budget study). The most recent reports involving methane were to do with the explosion at the Moura coal mine.

As we were saying at the outset, James Murdoch’s resignation from the board of News Corp came with a statement in which he castigated the chairman (Dad) and the company over its climate change denialism. It’s not so much about bias as choosing which stories to cover (and when) .

While the Methane Budget study might be deemed by editors of mainstream tabloids to be ‘boring as batshit’, nevertheless its key findings were reported by outlets including the ABC, Washington Post, The Guardian, the Straits Times, Nature and quality monthlies that report on science. There is a good analysis by carbonbrief-org where the key points can be grasped by the lay person. Methane is often ignored in climate change discussions, despite having a more deleterious effect than CO2 (more carbon per molecule) – thanks Dr John.

One thing I missed on the first read through was that South East Asia and Oceania were in the top three regions for recording increased methane emissions. Global methane emissions were 1875 parts per billion at the end of 2019 – two and a half times higher than pre-industrial levels.

Why this topic caught my attention was an awareness, given a wetter winter than usual (building up fuel loads), that we could be heading into an early bushfire season. This was the case in 2019, with the first reports of serious bushfires alerts emerging in early August.

Those engaged in fire fighting know why bushfires are getting earlier and nastier. A report by volunteer firefighters published in the University of Melbourne’s Voice magazine in early 2015 flagged a few warnings about bush fire prevention. It also cited the role of bushfires in escalating the release of methane and CO2 into the atmosphere.

The study authors found that levels of carbon and greenhouse gases released in Eucalypt wildfires could be reduced by fuel reduction burning, or planned burns conducted prior to the bushfire season in high risk forests.

“The results of these actions could inform land management decisions as well as government policy regarding planned burning. Also, it could enable more accurate estimations of the contribution that bushfires make to Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.”

As we head into the spring of 2020, I can but offer this insight on the left and right of politics, still bickering about hazard reduction burning (and whether it works or not). What was that about Rome burning?

FOMM back pages