The future of national newspapers . So much more than print. Ernst & Young Report.

Besides PWC GEMO report that we talked about a few days ago; in march, Ernst & Young published its report on media. It points some trends:

- Lower barriers to entry

- Younger people reading less print newspapers anymore

- Advertising budgets moving out from print media

- Promotions working well only short term

- Decreasing CPMs (in other words, traffic grow faster than revenues)

Main challenges and recomendations:

- converting audience into revenue. Start pushing new revenue models such as CPC or CPL (cost per lead). Acquire companies in online classifieds. Improve behavioural targetting (together with a focus in CPC/CPL would increase audience profitability). Work on sections sponsorship.

- Targetting younger groups.

- Finding an alternative to expensive promotions

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Findings are not revolutionary for people who is aware of these issues but the document is a brief and nice status on where we are. It was made for the UK but it can be applied to other markets. Solutions offered on increasing revenues from audiences are already being develop by media but the problem is not the concept of paymet but the global available budget of advertisers given to online advertising. In the other hand, for example, google CPC system results in a really low CPM for publishers using adsense.