Future Foundation: Prospects for print in a decade of transformation

In our latest Research Focus report, Future Foundation looks at the challenges facing the print industry in an increasingly digital landscape – but confirms that “Ink is not dead yet”…

It is undeniable that the print media industry is facing some very serious challenges to its future – challenges which will have to call forth endless creativity and innovation from title-owners and distributors alike.

The pace of technological inventiveness continues to be breakneck. We all had only a few weeks to get used to Kindle before iPad came along. A new range of mobile phones imparts news and features in every more colourful and versatile formats. Hardly anyone has to wait any longer for the latest Hollywood gossip, football scores, stock prices.

The question we ask here is how Print – with all its virtues and limitations – is fitting into the wider cultural trendscape of our times. What is the underlying pattern of Print’s prospects in an age when the internet surges forward on the surf of endless apps – and when consumers everywhere can keep changing their habits, changing their expectations, changing their minds?

The land of the Free

Firstly, let’s acknowledge the extent to which our society is truly the land of “The Free”.

The lesson of the internet for millions is that much can be procured without any direct transfer price.   The digital age has largely been defined by uninterrupted, free-of-charge access to news, entertainment, sport and film. The BBC website is a gloriously generous case in point.

And for many, this is how the internet is, always has been and should be forever more.  As Future Foundation research reveals, consumers feel a growing sense of entitlement around receiving material for free in so many theatres of their lives: 31% of people say that they no longer buy paid-for newspapers as often as before since they have been able to get newspapers for free; 55% of them expect all content offered via the internet to be free of charge. This is so totally the way we live now.

We juxtapose this feature with the empirical truism that the sheer demand for cultural expression, however defined, has become a kind of infinity.

As the chart below shows, some 40% of the entire British population now use the internet to receive their latest news, weather or sports updates on a regular basis. This phenomenon will be significantly propelled by the flight to flexible platforms, ubiquitous net access, a screen in every eyeline, wherever one looks.

The role of traditional media

But along the way, old technologies still have their part to play and their market to grow. The role of newspaper-reading within commuting cultures (especially with low or non-existent prices) is one source of suggestion that delivery mechanisms can co-exist.

Meanwhile, the consumer-citizen’s appetite to either absorb or create content remains intense. Video does not have to kill the radio star – provided that the older media take techno-social change as a pointed invitation to do things better: capture better writers, build alliances with readers and, crucially, creatively cross-reference their hard-copy and online versions. Whatever magazine is published on Kindle, it will still find an audience only if the content is good, from a well-branded source, rooted in established quality.

There is no doubt that the promise within the new wave of technological innovation is that consumers can customise, personalise and streamline their media consumption. But this is not necessarily a threat to branded media titles.  The Telegraph reader of today is unlikely to alter too many of his/her interests in life because of new media; that person may indeed continue to like to be known as a Telegraph reader and may well be happy each day for the editor to select the headlines, the features, the commentaries which will amuse.  Few of us, we suspect, will want to create our own daily.

It is our contention that while traditional publishers are undoubtedly facing unprecedented pressure, there is also a real opportunity for them to embrace new forms of creativity and to consider potential new business models to ensure their future success. For example:-

• Newspapers which have already experimented with multimedia content online will be able to harness the power of new devices, integrating a cohesive layout with enhanced advertising possibilities
• Innovative publishers will be able to experiment with tailored content solutions – for example niuu in Germany, which invites consumers to aggregate content from a wide range of online sources
• Real-time, on-the-move technology offers a sneak preview of the power of citizen journalism – will there come a time when print media establishes creative collaborations between themselves and consumer-writers?
• Print titles may also find opportunities to specialise in areas of information, such as investigative journalism, that cannot easily be reproduced by the blogosphere

While it is undeniable that we are witnessing a dramatic change in the way that consumers interact with information, shifting from a traditional single view culture to a diverse portfolio approach, there is endless scope for creativity and for new business models to emerge.  Ink is not dead yet.

The Future Foundation is a leading consumer insight and trends think-tank.  For more on the media or the future of technology , contact Karen Canty at the Future Foundation on 020 3008 5772/ karenc@futurefoundation.net.