Newspaper Demand Research Articles

Unraveling US Newspapers’ Digital and Print Subscriptions in the Context of Price, 2016–2022

Despite industry-wide efforts in digitally transforming news organizations, research showed that most newspapers’ legacy products still outperformed the same newspaper’s digital offerings in terms of engagement, circulation, readership, pricing, advertising, and subscription revenue—all by a wide margin. But Covid-19 created an unprecedented scenario where the need for instant, local news updates, the fear of contacting anything tangible, and financial stress may have changed consumer behavior. To assess the state of the newspaper industry, this study analyzes short-term and long-term trends in US newspapers’ digital and print circulation before and during the pandemic. The analysis considered price, an important factor often neglected in discussions about newspaper demand. Utilizing rich industry data, this study analyzed 18 US metro daily newspapers’ circulation trends during 2016–2022. The results revealed that digital circulation increased rapidly after the onset of Covid-19 but subsequently decreased after reaching the peak in Q3 2021. Print circulation continued its rapid decline since 2016, accompanied by continuous, substantial price hikes for print subscriptions—a typical print subscription now costs over $1,000 a year. Despite circulation declines, the print edition remains the core product, with more subscribers paying far more than digital subscribers. Because of the immense price gap (6 to 1), the seemingly promising increase in digital subscriptions during Covid-19 could not generate nearly as much revenue to cover the loss on the print side, resulting in a substantial loss in total subscription revenue. The state of the US newspaper industry needs immediate attention.

Economic Problems of Russia on the Eve of the Events of February 1917 on the Pages of the Newspaper “Rech”

Introduction. The history of periodicals in Russia has a rather long period – from the beginning of the 18th century. This story had its good and bad periods, but the demand for newspapers and magazines has always been high. Through publications in the press, one can trace the issues and problems that were discussed in society in society on a particular day and year. It is not without reason that the famous philosopher A. Schopenhauer noted: “Newspapers are the second hands of history”. 1917 is the cornerstone of the history of the Russian state, which divided it into “before” and “after”. Among the reasons that led to the February Revolution of 1917 are the economic problems that existed in the state before entering the First World War and aggravated and supplemented after August 1914: an archaic tax system, monopolization of the economy, a reduction in the number of workers in the countryside and the city, shortage of goods. These issues could not be covered in the periodical press. The materials on the situation in the economic sphere published in the liberal newspaper “Rech” arose the interest. Besides the newspaper was a kind of mouthpiece for the Cadet Party. The purpose of the article is to analyze the published material on the problems of the Russian economy on the eve of the February Revolution in order to clarify the understanding of the situation in the country by the Cadets. Materials and Methods. Certain goals were solved using general scientific, idiographic (description of the history of the issue), problem-analytical (consideration of the situation in Russia on the eve of February 1917 through the problems of the economy), synchronous (allowing to establish links between various phenomena in the economic sphere). Results. The economic issues discussed in the daily printed publication were varied: from possible personnel changes and military loans to reforms of taxation and the economic situation in the country. Discussion and Conclusion. Considering the various problems of the country, including economic ones, the staff of the liberal newspaper “Rech” did not see signs of cardinal changes in the country and the impending revolution. These events were not reflected in the materials of the newspaper.

Predicting in multivariate incomplete time series. Application of the expectation-maximisation algorithm supplemented by the Newton-Raphson method

Statistical practice requires various imperfections resulting from the nature of data to be addressed. Data containing different types of measurement errors and irregularities, such as missing observations, have to be modelled. The study presented in the paper concerns the application of the expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithm to calculate maximum likelihood estimates, using an autoregressive model as an example. The model allows describing a process observed only through measurements with certain level of precision and through more than one data series. The studied series are affected by a measurement error and interrupted in some time periods, which causes the information for parameters estimation and later for prediction to be less precise. The presented technique aims to compensate for missing data in time series. The missing data appear in the form of breaks in the source of the signal. The adjustment has been performed by the EM algorithm to a hybrid version, supplemented by the Newton-Raphson method. This technique allows the estimation of more complex models. The formulation of the substantive model of an autoregressive process affected by noise is outlined, as well as the adjustment introduced to overcome the issue of missing data. The extended version of the algorithm has been verified using sampled data from a model serving as an example for the examined process. The verification demonstrated that the joint EM and Newton-Raphson algorithms converged with a relatively small number of iterations and resulted in the restoration of the information lost due to missing data, providing more accurate predictions than the original algorithm. The study also features an example of the application of the supplemented algorithm to some empirical data (in the calculation of a forecasted demand for newspapers).

Analysis daily newspaper distribution in Solo by Agent Based Simulation

Agent based simulation is a simulation model that can be used to describe the interaction between the involved agents. The interaction is generated from observations of human behavior. This study aims to provide an overview of business process PT Aksara Solopos and involved agents in it, especially for Koran Harian Solopos. In addition, to cope with the large number of paper returns is estimating the newspaper demand by simulation. Simulations done using NetLogo 6.0.3 applications. This research produced the number of clients who are subscribed by newspaper deliveryman and daily stock for the company, newsagents, newspaper deliveryman to complete the consumer demand.

Demand Forecasting with Five Parameter Exponential Smoothing

Changes in technology has affected many aspects on economic development. One of them is Newspaper Industry. Reports indicate that globally the newspaper is passing through its hardest time ever. Therefore, newspaper industry need to be more creative in order to be able to deal with change and maintain its existence. In supply chain management newspaper industry, forecasting is the most important part to predict the future demand, minimize waste of product, scheduling production, optimize inventory level and resources. The exponential smoothing methods are simple but the best approach and popular methods used for forecasting. This study aimed to implement five parameter exponential smoothing to predict number of newspaper demand in the future with various method to get the best forecast result. The perfomance of method is evaluated using a newspaper demand daily time series. MSD and MSE used to determining and selecting the best forecasting method. The result show that additive Holt winters method with damped trend (DAHWM) is suitable for demand forecasting in newspaper industry.

Using Reader Preferences to Optimize News Content: A Method and a Case Study

This article introduces the use of choice-based conjoint analysis to measure the content preferences of newspaper readers. Its importance lies in its role as part of an economic theory of newspaper finance that connects various measures of news quality to circulation and to circulation revenue. In addition, choice-based conjoint provides another way to operationalize “quality” in terms of how much readers like various kinds of content and the relative amounts of that liking. Content preferences were obtained from a large sample of readers of a newspaper of about 100,000 in circulation from the Southeastern United States using the proposed methodology and subsequently, the results were used by the newspaper to modify its content accordingly. Four months after the content changes were made, the publisher of the newspaper reported a significant maintenance of circulation even as print price was increased by 75%. The findings are consistent with the economic model of newspaper demand, and suggests that preferences measured using choice-based conjoint provide impetus for making key management decisions.

Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers

We study the competitive forces which shaped ideological diversity in the US press in the early twentieth century. We find that households preferred like-minded news and that newspapers used their political orientation to differentiate from competitors. We formulate a model of newspaper demand, entry, and political affiliation choice in which newspapers compete for both readers and advertisers. We use a combination of estimation and calibration to identify the model's parameters from novel data on newspaper circulation, costs, and revenues. The estimated model implies that competition enhances ideological diversity, that the market undersupplies diversity, and that optimal competition policy requires accounting for the two-sidedness of the news market. (JEL D72, K21, L13, L41, L82, N42, N72)

Sales Forecasting System for Newspaper Distribution Companies in Turkey

Newspapers are like goods with a shelf life of one day and they have to be distributed daily basis to the sales points. A problem that most newspaper companies encounter daily is how to predict the right number of newspapers to print and distribute among distinct sales points. The aim is to predict newspaper demand as accurately as possible to meet customer need with minimum number of returns, missed sales and oversupply. This makes it necessary to develop a short-term forecasting system. The data taken from one of the largest distribution companies in Turkey is time dependent. Therefore, time series analysis is used to forecast newspaper circulation. In this paper, the newspaper sales system is examined for Turkey. Various types of forecasting techniques which are applicable to newspaper circulation planning are compared and a nonlinear approach for returns is applied.

Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers

We study the competitive forces that shaped ideological diversity in the US press in the early twentieth century. We find that households preferred like-minded news and that newspapers used their political orientation to differentiate from competitors. We formulate a model of newspaper demand, entry, and political affiliation choice in which newspapers compete for both readers and advertisers. We use a combination of estimation and calibration to identify the model's parameters from novel data on newspaper circulation, costs, and revenues. The estimated model implies that competition enhances ideological diversity, that the market undersupplies diversity, and that optimal competition policy requires accounting for the two-sidedness of the news market.

What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers

We construct a new index of media slant that measures whether a news outlet.s language is more similar to that of a congressional Republican or Democrat. We apply the measure to study the market forces that determine political con- tent in the news. We estimate a model of newspaper demand that incorporates slant explicitly, estimate the slant that would be chosen if newspapers independently maximized their own profits, and compare these ideal points with .rms. actual choices. Our analysis confirms an economically significant demand for news slanted toward one's own political ideology. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample. By contrast, the identity of a newspaper's owner explains far less of the variation in slant. We also present evidence on the role of pressure from incumbent politicians, tastes of reporters, and newspaper competition in determining slant.

Forecasting newspaper demand with censored regression

Newspaper circulation has to be determined at the level of the individual retail outlets for each of the editions to be sold through such outlets. Traditional forecasting methods provide no insight into the impact of the service level: defined as the probability that no out-of-stock will occur. The service level results in out-of-stock situations, causing missed sales and oversupply or returns. In our application management sets a policy aiming at a 97% service level. The forecasting system developed provides estimates for excess deliveries and for the expected shortages. The results compare favourably to the traditional moving average approach previously employed by the publisher. Censored regression is a natural approach to the newspaper problem. It provides information on key policy variables and it is relatively simple to integrate into the distribution policy, with only small adaptations to the existing forecasting and distribution policy.

Bayesian and adaptive controls for a newsvendor facing exponential demand

The newsvendor problem is relatively easy to solve when the distribution of demand for newspapers is known. When the demand is unknown, the newsvendor faces a dual problem in the sense of Feldbaum (1960): to choose a decision variable that maximizes profit in the present period, and choose a large enough observation window to be able to view the process correctly so that consistent parameter estimation can occur. This is a difficult problem in general. In this paper, we treat a special case when the newsvendor faces exponential demand, independently and identically distributed with unknown mean.

THE ANALYSIS OF CROATIAN NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY

The paper analyses newspaper industry in the Croatian market, its specificities, limitations and future trends. Specificities of newspaper industry can be viewed as specificities of newspaper demand, specificities of newspaper supply and specificity of governmental policy towards media. Furthermore, newspaper industry in the Croatian market has been analysed on the basis of Porter`s five forces analysis. Among many benefits they provide, daily newspapers have a major disadvantage – their inability to capture new happenings that occur during the day. Regarding, newspapers lose their edge to television, radio and internet. Based on the industry analysis, development of online newspapers is being outlined. In addition, its impact on reader behaviour is being examined.

Newspaper demand prediction and replacement model based on fuzzy clustering and rules

A problem that most newspaper companies encounter daily is how to predict the right number of newspapers to print and distribute among distinct selling points. The aim is to predict newspaper demand as accurately as possible to meet customer need and decrease loss, the number of newspaper offered but not sold. The right amount depends of the newspaper demand at different selling points and is a function of the geographical location and customer profile. Currently, demand prediction is based on values experienced in the past and on management knowledge. This paper suggests the use of predictive data mining techniques as a systematic approach to explore newspaper company database and improve predictions. Predictions require accurate forecast of the daily newspaper amount needed at each selling point. The focus of the paper is on a prediction method that uses fuzzy clustering for data base exploration and fuzzy rules together with performance scores of selling points for prediction. Experimental results using actual data show that the method is effective when compared with the current methodology, neural network-based predictors, and autoregressive forecasters. In particular, the predictive data mining technique improves on average 10% in comparison with the use of the existing approaches.

What Drives Media Slant? Evidence from U.S. Daily Newspapers

We construct a new index of media slant that measures whether a news outlet's language is more similar to a congressional Republican or Democrat. We apply the measure to study the market forces that determine political content in the news. We estimate a model of newspaper demand that incorporates slant explicitly, estimate the slant that would be chosen if newspapers independently maximized their own profits, and compare these ideal points with firms' actual choices. Our analysis confirms an economically significant demand for news slanted toward one's own political ideology. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample. By contrast, the identity of a newspaper's owner explains far less of the variation in slant, and we find little evidence that media conglomerates homogenize news to minimize fixed costs in the production of content.

Tabloid Newspapers in Post-Communist Hungary

An important and particular feature of post-communist transformation in the media in East Central Europe was the rise of a section of the press devoted to sensation and scandals. This development was the result of different processes which occurred with the system change. The most important changes were the end of political control of the press; the liberalisation and marketisation of press markets; the commercialisation of the media and changing media consumption patterns. The development of sensational press was influenced by changing market conditions in post-communist media, particularly the saturation and shrinking of the press market (the expanding but increasingly competitive advertising sector and the limited potential for considerable financial gains in the national dailies market) foreign investment, changes in newspaper demand (such as in reading habits and decreasing buying power of the population), and post-communist cultural changes, with emphasis on internationalisation and promotion of consumer society. The development of popular papers led to the segmentation of the Hungarian press market, where there were three groups: tabloids, qualities and specialised titles. Despite the increase in circulation and market share tabloids do not dominate the Hungarian market the way they prevail in the press markets of the Western world. Quality papers retain higher circulation figures overall and they also perform better in the advertising market. This is partly due to the fact that many press titles of the communist era managed to transform and rejuvenate themselves into market-type quality papers benefiting that they were already familiar to readers.

The Risk-Averse (and Prudent) Newsboy

The effects of risk and risk aversion in the single-period inventory (“newsboy”) problem are examined. Comparative-static effects of changes in the various price and cost parameters are determined and related to the newsboy's risk aversion. The addition of a random background wealth and of an increase in the riskiness of newspaper demand are also examined. Although many of the comparative effects generally are ambiguous, some fairly simple restrictions on preferences and/or risk increases are shown to lead to qualitatively deterministic results.

Pricing Decisions of the Newspaper Monopolist

In nearly every city in the United States there is only one daily newspaper of general interest. Given the prevalence of monopoly,' it seems anomalous that newspapers are typically sold well below cost. Compaine [5, 19], for example, reports that sales revenue is only 28.7 percent of total cost. Moreover, it appears that price is below marginal cost since the sales revenue does not cover the cost of the ink and paper used in producing the newspaper.2 If the newspaper publisher were selling only newspapers, he or she would be in dire straits. But in reality, the publisher has two products to sell: the newspaper itself and advertising space within the newspaper. Although very few newspaper customers are also purchasers of advertising space, there is an important interaction between the circulation of the newspaper and the sale of advertising space. The higher the circulation of the newspaper, the greater the demand for advertising and the more advertising there is in the newspaper, the greater the circulation of the newspaper.3 As a consequence, the publisher has a more complicated pricing problem since the prices of advertising space and of the newspaper have feedback effects upon one another. In the next section of this paper, we shall derive the publisher's optimal prices for advertising space and for the newspaper under fairly general conditions. One purpose of this analysis is to show that there are two meaningful measures of demand elasticity. In section IV, we discuss some of the associated empirical problems that this poses and relate this to two existing newspaper demand studies.