What Business Are Paper Companies Really In?

The above chart is difficult to read, but what it shows is a steady decline in advertising dollars for newspapers - and - even though newspapers like to blame the internet for lost business (after all, news is not the primary motive for papers - it's delivering advertising to the homes) - it is mostly going to TV & Cable. The problem is newspapers still think their job is news - when clearly they cannot compete with TV, Cable, and the internet when it comes to news (state and national). They have lost the under 40 customer and will probably never get them back.

So, what does this have to do with paper companies that make newsprint? Well, if they had realized they were in the ad/news delivering business, they'd have invested in TV/Cable/internet servers and would still be going strong - posed for the future. However, they thought they were in the newsprint making business and sold off all their woodlands to preserve a business that is in decline and not coming back.

They should have kept their woodlands, sold their mills and used the revenue from mill sales to become lang management companies and specialists in media delivery. That is - if they had wanted to stay true to their customers.

On a different subject, I've posted a link to Dead Tree Edition. This anonymous blogger has some interesting insight on the publishing side (and paper purchasing) of the business.