Hacker Read

pg · 2012-02-27 12:22:29

Not entirely fiction. Newspapers used to have fewer ads.

wavephorm | karma 2375 | avg karma 2.95 · | 2011-11-11 17:55:57

Newspapers have a lot less than 25 pages of content these days, but a lot more ads.

pomian | karma 1108 | avg karma 2.16 · | 2021-12-10 14:25:44

I think we have seen the same drama in newspapers. More ads. Even whole cover page, is an advertisement. Reduced readership, and unlikely to attract more due to high advertising volume.

rangibaby | karma 4918 | avg karma 2.67 · | 2019-09-01 20:13:42+00:00

Newspapers have always been full of ads fwiw

DaveExeter | karma 396 | avg karma 1.23 · | 2023-07-10 10:13:17

That's not it.

Newspapers used to have a monopoly on advertising, at least in the local area. Once they lost their monopoly they were no longer financially viable.

reply

perl4ever | karma 7545 | avg karma 0.95 · | 2018-06-18 05:25:27+00:00

I believe I've seen claims that classified ads used to support newspapers, and the internet took that away.

ianzapolsky | karma 4 | avg karma 1.33 · | 2015-08-11 15:28:51+00:00

newspapers and magazines have always had advertisements

cromulent | karma 5942 | avg karma 4.4 · | 2021-07-18 16:48:12

Yes, For example, nearly all job advertisements used to be in newspapers. Rivers of gold, they were called in the Australian print media. All that revenue is long gone from newspapers.

nitwit005 | karma 6846 | avg karma 2.51 · | 2018-09-10 00:08:14+00:00

Have to, unfortunately, agree with the low value of the Sunday papers, even decades ago. Toss out the piles of ads, sports, comics, gardening, and you were left with a sliver of generic stories they could have printed any time.

One thing I suspect has been a blow to the news is that they used to be able to pretend people would look at all those ads. How many people were genuinely looking at all that? Now it's extremely easy to learn that its just not happening.

reply

timr | karma 29007 | avg karma 5.19 · | 2009-02-10 07:24:13+00:00

"Newspapers have historically derived almost all of their revenue from advertising"

That's actually not true. As recently as the 1960s, big newspapers made nearly half of their revenue from subscriptions:

http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/02/06/03

As far as ad revenue goes, I don't know if it's true that online ads are less effective than print, but I know that there are a heck of a lot more of them to compete for advertising dollars. Advertisers still pay for reach into a target market (which is why you can get crazy high CPM rates for things like travel forums), but today there are simply a lot more sources for undifferentiated eyeballs than there were in the 60s.

reply

prapam2 | karma 56 | avg karma 1.1 · | 2015-07-30 15:54:48+00:00

But newspaper carried ads as well. It is where i live.

icebraining | karma 48925 | avg karma 2.14 · | 2018-05-16 07:48:23+00:00

That's interesting, that quote implies there a time when newspapers existed without ads, but was there?

TRiG_Ireland | karma 617 | avg karma 1.62 · | 2023-10-05 16:21:01

Early newspapers, even paid ones, often had an entire front page of only ads. And then more ads within.

mikeash | karma 74524 | avg karma 3.52 · | 2019-09-24 12:32:11+00:00

Anymore? Advertising has been the major source of newspaper revenue forever.

taurath | karma 11745 | avg karma 3.44 · | 2019-02-08 19:24:34+00:00

Your point that ads have always existed is well taken, but if newspapers looked like a local news site today people wouldn't have bought them (its more akin to the free weekly tabloids than a real newspaper). Newspapers used to make money through classifieds in addition to subscriptions. If only there were local-oriented services newspapers could provide - I hope someone figures out a better model soon.

aet | karma 927 | avg karma 2.16 · | 2015-03-25 13:42:34

It seems that this logic applied well before online. I imagine newspapers would not place ads next to stories of this type on print either.

morgante | karma 703 | avg karma 0.17 · | 2016-01-09 18:13:52+00:00

Wrong. For most of history, journalism has been subsidized by advertising. (See my other reply for references.)

To this day, the vast majority of newspaper revenue comes from print advertising.

reply

taejo | karma 2300 | avg karma 1.86 · | 2018-10-15 08:05:08+00:00

Newspaper subscribers still see ads... that's the whole point of this discussion.

ralphsaunders | karma 45 | avg karma 1.45 · | 2011-07-29 04:13:04+00:00

That simply isn't true.

> Since news is accessed only via subscription, most of the ads can be eliminated from the pages. Story pages could still have one or two tastefully-presented ads, but preservation of the content is what will keep readers happy, engaged, and willing to continue paying their subscriptions…just like in olden times.

http://andyrutledge.com/images09/newsSite/nyt-redux-article....

reply

cafard | karma 5949 | avg karma 1.1 · | 2020-07-31 11:24:14+00:00

Advertisement have always paid for most of journalism. If the equivalent of classified ads magically vanished from the internet, there would be a rebirth of small newspapers, and the big ones would become much healthier.