To certify the growing dominance of information on the web, compared to newspapers and paper magazines, after the conferment of the Pulitzer Prize to a Huffington Post reporter, the data released today by Fieg, the Italian federation of newspaper publishers, arrives, in the study “La Stampa in Italy 2009-2011".
Indeed, from the numbers contained in the report, this trend line in the diffusion and consumption of newspapers, and not only, in Italy clearly emerges. The the total number of Italians who read newspapers would have grown by 1,8% in the period under consideration, rising to 24,2 million people, equal to 46,2% of Italians over 14 years of age. All this despite the drop in sales of newspapers, more than compensated, however, by from the boom in daily users of the magazine sites, whose number grew by 2009% from 2011 to 50, from 4 to 6 million.
The Fieg document states that “between 2009 and 2011, the total number of active web users on an average day increased from 10,4 to 13,1 million, an increase of 26%. The percentage of online newspaper readers out of total web users, on an average day, was 2011% in 46,8, while it was 2009% in 38,3. Probably in 2012 it will exceed the threshold of 50%”.
The impetuous growth in the number of users has also led, among its consequences, the substantial increase in revenues from online activities (+38,8% in 2010 and +32% in 2011), but their incidence on the global turnover of the sector remains marginal at 1,4%.
As regards revenues from newspapers, the decline that began in 2009 continues, with a loss of 2,2%, mainly due to the drop in revenues from advertising, while price increases took place on the revenues front to compensate for the drop in sales. AND "the prospects for 2012 do not appear better“, with the highlighted critical issues that should continue their course, without substantial trend reversals, despite cost containment.
Looking at the magazines, instead, the audience growth of 0,2% brought the readership share to 32,5 million people, equal to 62,0% of the adult population, but turnover fell by 2,9%, due to the contraction of both advertising and sales revenues.
Summing up, the Fieg Report draws a complex picture of Italian publishing, in which readers are increasing, but buyers are decreasing and, consequently, revenues. And while traditional media are falling back, information runs fast on the web full speed along the road that leads to its multimedia revolution, which now seems inevitable.
Read the report of the president of Fieg: http://www.fieg.it/upload/documenti_allegati/RELAZIONE%20DEL%20PRESIDENTE.pdf
