Inman News has reported that the LA Times newspaper is ceasing its publication of its weekly newspaper section. A section that has been a feature of the paper for over a century. Read the full article here.
Like many newspapers around the world, the decline in revenues due to the take up of online technologies would have been one of the factors but I would suggest it was further accelerated by the shocking real estate market in the states at the moment. I cant see too many agents throwing money at any sort of advertising whilst they are not selling anything.
Newspapers around the world have been doing the best of holding back the tide of the online world. These cutbacks across the board by a major Newspaper like the LA Times appears to be one of the first major cracks in their defence, at least as far as the real estate industry is concerned. It cant be too long before we start to see similar decisions being made on a local level. 2009? maybe 2010?.
There are some differences in our market in comparison to the US with regards to real estate revenue at least which may insulate print for a little while yet. The prime example of this is that in Australia we have to pay for our online advertising due to their subscription based model on the major two real estate portals which between them have a massive market share. In contrast there are substantially more portals in the US, none with a major market share and each are free to the agent and operate on an advertising based model.
Print is not dead in Australia yet, but this may just be the harbinger of things to come.
1 Comment
adam
Print is not dead in Australia yet, but this may just be the harbinger of things to come.
Agreed !