Published on 29 Apr 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
PCC
JRN - 185
Newspaper Publishing
● Newspaper Ads
○ Income from advertisement sales is an integral component of the economic model
that underpins newspaper businesses
■ Only big source of revenue in paid-for newspapers
○ Apart from that generated from the selling to the paper's buyer
○ Primary source of free newspapers
○ That's why advertising departments are a vital part of every newspaper business
○ Huge sales staff constantly on the phone selling inventory, incentivized by
performance incentives
○ Price the newspapers will charge for ads is determined by the newspaper's selling
and the readership's demographic 'efficiency'
○ Amount and value of ads produced is determined by the newspaper pagination
○ Since Wapping gave management the freedom to increase pagination at will,
pagination has greatly increased
○ Franklin tracks shifts in pre- and post-Wapping pagination
○ With the Sun changing, for example, from an average of 32 pages per issue in
1984 to 52 in 1994
○ The corresponding figures are 28 and 72 for the Guardian, 178 and 362 for the
Sunday Times, and 64 and 220 for the Mail
● Newspapers also introduced new sections and magazines
○ Increased the coverage of sports not only to provide readers with better value and
more incentives to buy
○ Also to make room for more ads, taking in more money
○ Why publishers are investing in new printing presses, not only to provide better
quality
○ Not only to generate extra revenue from contract printing of other publishers'
goods
○ Also to significantly expand the use of color in a publication
○ Color advertising costs the advertiser more than black and white
○ A lot of advertisers are willing to pay the extra for the additional color effects
○ Newspaper publishers have tariff cards in their titles providing advertisement
costs
○ They are all subject to much bargaining by media buyers
○ The advertiser-publisher intermediaries, but the following illustrative rate card
figures offer some insight into what marketers pay for ads