Andy has an interesting post on Marketing Pilgrim examining the question of whether or not print is dead. I’ve been on both the media and ad agency side of this equation, and I think I can say that if print isn’t dead, then most newspaper companies are on life support.

IMO, newspapers’ problems start and end with the fact that they are primarily paper. Maybe they need to change their overall name from “newspaper” to “newsportal” or maybe just “news.” Most newspapers and magazines have an online format, but few have really embraced the ability to make money from the electronic versions.

Specifically:

• Usability remains an issue with cluttered layout and sub-par navigation and internal search functionality
• Advertising is positioned in counter-intuitive fashions, without regard to recent eye-tracking studies
• Newspapers have not accepted the fact that users have different expectations when reading online than they do when reading paper

It’s almost as if reading a newspaper is a hobby. Print is slower to navigate and more importantly, it’s dated. What happened at press check is rarely what happened 5 minutes ago. Who wants to be the last to know after they’ve read the article?

Average Circulation of U.S. Daily Newspapers

Weekday and Sunday editions, 1990 to 2003

The vultures are circling.