A: Online medias.
Q: How do you look for advertisement?
A: Newspaper.
I read news on www.malaysiakini.com, sinchew.com.my, thestar.com.my etc daily. Occasionally, I buy newspaper on Friday or Saturday, to find out the latest hypermarket promotions, new property launch, products and services promotions.
I (we) have changed the way I get information in recent years, and it make me wonder whether the word "newspaper" still carry its original meaning? I decided to do a study, and the subject of my study is last Saturday Star "newspaper" on 23rd October, 2010.
The purpose of the study is to find out the news and advertisement content distribution on newspaper. Following is the summary:
| Section | Pages | News | Advertisements |
| Star | 72 | 55% | 45% |
| Saturday Metro | 56 | 44% | 56% |
| Weekender | 36 | 51% | 49% |
| StarBizWeek | 40 | 81% | 19% |
| StarJobs | 32 | 0% | 100% |
| Classified | 44 | 2% | 98% |
| | | | |
| Overall | | 49% | 61% |
On average, 61% of what I read from that newspaper was advertisement. Well, I spent RM1.50 to buy that newspaper because I want to read the advertisement, and I got 61% of it, not bad!
But wait, isn't it newspaper? Why the content of advertisement is more than news? If I take away StarJobs and Classified which are supposed to be adspaper, the overall percentage of advertisement on the newspaper still stand at 43%, which I think is still very high.
On a typical www.malaysiakini.com news page, the percentage of advertisement is still less than 25%. Going at this trend, would newspaper eventually evolve into adspaper? And newsmedia will be the new source of news? Time will tell, and we are the one who will decide.
Note: The percentage is based on visual estimation only.
Note2: Obituary is classified as advertisement.
Note3: The result is based on a single day newspaper only.
1 comment:
print newspaper media is going to be obsolete. i have the same observation one of the sunday, every other page on the paper is ads, which account to the same percentage as your research.
Shouldn't they be giving the paper away since they are charging on ads?
I will prefer newspaper distribute via e-book. But then again, who reads mainstream printed newspaper?
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