While flicking through the blog section on http://www.journalism.co.uk/, I stumbled across a post with the title “Times of India: US Newspapers May Opt for Outsourcing”.
Alarm bells started ringing in my head. I have heard of outsourcing telecommunication and IT jobs to distant shores but I began to instantly question how somebody could accurately commentate on something from a distance.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t really explain how it can be done. However, it does highlight how the proposal can be good for business. According to a study, the offshore opportunity from newspaper publishers is estimated to be worth around $3.5 billion. Furthermore, it is expected to reach $12 billion by 2012.
It's all about money. Shrinking circulations, rising newsprint prices and a drop in advertising has troubled magazine and newspaper outlets around the world. The recent sacking of editorial staff at The Age is a local example of how newspapers are struggling in the digital age. Matthew Ricketson blames cheap and easy-to-run online websites for usurping the advertising dollar that was traditionally reserved for newspaper classifieds.
I agree that it would be practical to scale down newspaper operations in favour of the online platform but I did find it surprising that The Age chose to do this after announcing an annual profit. After all, a week had only passed since The Age made it public that revenue for 2007-08 had increased 34% to 2.92 billion.
I wouldn’t call that “struggling”.
Alarm bells started ringing in my head. I have heard of outsourcing telecommunication and IT jobs to distant shores but I began to instantly question how somebody could accurately commentate on something from a distance.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t really explain how it can be done. However, it does highlight how the proposal can be good for business. According to a study, the offshore opportunity from newspaper publishers is estimated to be worth around $3.5 billion. Furthermore, it is expected to reach $12 billion by 2012.
It's all about money. Shrinking circulations, rising newsprint prices and a drop in advertising has troubled magazine and newspaper outlets around the world. The recent sacking of editorial staff at The Age is a local example of how newspapers are struggling in the digital age. Matthew Ricketson blames cheap and easy-to-run online websites for usurping the advertising dollar that was traditionally reserved for newspaper classifieds.
I agree that it would be practical to scale down newspaper operations in favour of the online platform but I did find it surprising that The Age chose to do this after announcing an annual profit. After all, a week had only passed since The Age made it public that revenue for 2007-08 had increased 34% to 2.92 billion.
I wouldn’t call that “struggling”.
No comments:
Post a Comment