Back in the golden age of the newspaper market, many newspapers had a circulation of more than one million, the number of pages was as high as 1,000, and a small city could even have more than 20 large newspapers.
However, with the advent of the Internet era, the newspaper industry has experienced the bombardment of radio and television, web portals, information clients, and short video platforms, and has no choice but to usher in the end of the oil and lamp, and has become an existence that no one cares about.
In recent years, the decay and crisis of the newspaper industry in the mobile Internet is a common topic, and newspapers, as a form of media older than the era of black-and-white television, are bidding farewell to readers with withered leaves.
Although the argument of the decline of the newspaper industry has been sung for many years, there are still a large number of newspapers and periodicals.
The loneliness of newspapers
Among the three traditional media, newspapers, television, and magazines, newspapers are the most popular and influential media, and they are the most mainstream channels for ordinary people to learn about information and current affairs.
It has many advantages, first of all, it has a fast speed of dissemination, and for most comprehensive daily and evening newspapers, they have a short publication cycle and fast information dissemination. Some of them can even produce three versions in one day, which is very time-sensitive.
The second is to return the reading initiative to the reader, the newspaper presents a lot of information in front of the reader at one time, and the reader freely chooses the reading area and content. Whether it's browsing, fast reading, or detailed reading, readers are free to decide how much they know.
In addition, newspapers also have the advantages of easy preservation and rich information, which became the mainstream media method in the last century.
However, with the rapid development of information technology and the continuous emergence of new media, people have begun to obtain news information from the Internet more and more. Newspapers, which are the mainstream of traditional media, have borne the brunt of the squeeze, suffering from the dilemma of a sharp drop in reading, a decline in advertising revenue, and a decrease in circulation.
Here is a set of data, in 2018, the total output value of the national media exceeded the 2 trillion mark, to 2,157.17 billion. In 2020, it will continue to grow to 2,522.97 billion yuan, an increase of 1,103.1 billion yuan compared with 2015.
However, while China's media industry is booming, the newspaper industry is in dire straits, declining over the past few years. In 2020, the total number of newspapers printed in the country was 28.9 billion, a decrease of nearly 14.1 billion compared with 2015, and the number of newspaper types published fell to 1,810, a decrease of 96 compared with 2015.
Newspapers can be divided into four categories: national, provincial, prefectural and county-level. In the past few years, the number of publications of these four types of newspapers has dropped by 25%~43%. Under the strong impact of the new media, newspapers with congenital disadvantages are undoubtedly exhausted in the market battle, and more and more newspapers and periodicals have announced the suspension of publication.
"Bazhong Evening News", "Hebei Science and Technology News", "Southern Rule of Law News", "Luoyang Business Daily", "Hefei Radio and Television News", and "Wenzhou Radio and Television New Week" have issued announcements announcing the suspension and suspension of publication. "Guiyang Evening News" also announced that it will usher in a revision and upgrade in 2022, and will update news information in the form of online media. Some of these old newspapers have won the first place in the national science and technology newspaper quality evaluation, and some have a total circulation of more than 28.6 million, but they have become the background board of new things under the rolling wheel of the times.
What is the difference between the closure and suspension of publication of these newspapers? These are two completely different concepts, and the context of suspension of publication contains the meaning of rest, which means that newspapers and periodicals will suspend publication for a period of time to make adjustments to themselves, and there is a possibility that they will resume publication in the future, and their issue numbers will also be retained. The suspension of the journal means that it will never be published, and the issue number will be invalidated immediately.
In addition, there are also expedient measures to survive by reducing editions and downsizing publications, which refers to reducing the number of editions and reducing the number of publications, which are all self-help operations for newspapers to save themselves from decay, but if they cannot make a transformation in a short period of time, it is tantamount to boiling a frog in warm water.
According to statistics, in 2008~2011, a total of 9,508 newsstands were dismantled across the country, and as of 2014, only 30,506 postal newsstands remained, and until the end of 2018, there were only 519 newsstands left in Beijing. In 2019, the average time of Chinese Internet users was 6.2 hours, and the average number of prefecture-level newspapers was closed 10~20 per year, all of which are signs that the glory of China's print media has changed.
The meaning of newspapers
Even though the channels for ordinary people to obtain news have changed, and even though newspapers have now become almost unpopular, there are still 1,810 newspapers and periodicals in the country, of which 932 are published at the national and provincial levels, 859 are at the prefectural and municipal levels, and 19 are at the county level.
You must know that newspaper distribution is hard work, from the editorial department to the printing house, and then through a series of work such as typesetting, debinding, production, debugging, printing, etc., it is already four or five o'clock in the morning, and the driver will transport it to the newspaper delivery staff until half past five, and then the newspaper delivery staff will carry out a day's newspaper delivery work.
Many units also have to undertake the task of subscribing to newspapers and magazines, the price of a newspaper ranges from 360 ~ 1000 yuan, if the number of units is large, a year down to even spend tens of thousands of yuan, which is a lot of expenses for some small grassroots governments, in this case, the newspaper as the media of the old era, what is the significance of its existence?
1. Newspapers have a very high authority, and paper media practitioners have always been content king, not only the degree of communication, but also the breadth, height, depth, dimension, and temperature.
In the post-truth era, everyone has a microphone in their hand, and some ordinary people who lack media literacy have the right to publish information. This will inevitably lead to the existence of some headline parties and rumors. Newspapers, on the other hand, circumvent these problems by having the right message and values, and having irreplaceable credibility and integrity.
The birth of a hot spot often stimulates a variety of opinions, and the position of the newspaper is without exception highly unified, and its distribution can assume the social responsibility of the mainstream voice, which is an ability that the self-media does not have.
2. Newspaper printing is not about economic accounts, but about political accounts. Newspapers and periodicals can be divided into current affairs and non-current affairs, among which the current affairs category includes three-level party newspapers and periodicals including democratic parties, and profit is not the purpose of the party media, but the meaning of the existence of these newspapers is to convey the party's voice and position among the people at the first time.
In addition, a considerable number of newspapers are public institutions within the system, and in order to maintain the income of the units, they also need to print newspapers for a long time to allow some government agencies and units to subscribe to academic Xi, so as to meet the needs of newspapers on the one hand, and promote the learning and Xi of the personnel of the units on the other hand.
Since there is no substitute for the necessity of the existence of newspapers, how can newspapers develop in the future to avoid the problem of suspending publication?
The key factor affecting the survival of traditional newspapers is the precipitous decline in advertising revenue, the disastrous subscription rate, and the plummeting advertising revenue. Some of the old media outlets still adhere to outdated newspaper concepts, resulting in a way of communication that is far behind the times. For these newspapers, how to create off-paper communication is the key to breaking the situation.
Li Qingchuan, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of Youth Daily, expounded his opinion: It is an inevitable choice for the newspaper to reallocate and plan its own resources by suspending the publication and then building a platform and position with more communication value.
It is true that today's newspapers should pay attention to the improvement of their own quality, strengthen the innovation of forms, and form a differentiated competition situation, so as to improve their own communication effect. It is necessary to find ways to get rid of the formal dilemma of the newspaper market, which is similar and mutually restrictive.
Take the previous cultural innovation of Henan Satellite TV as an example, relying on cultural creativity to achieve explosion out of the circle, with the help of its own millennium cultural province to find the right positioning, to achieve the spread of culture at the same time, establish its own image, this is the importance of form innovation.
The newspaper industry chain is related to many fields, supporting tens of thousands of jobs, and it is hoped that the newspaper will not develop into a pool of stagnant water, and can be revitalized under the future transformation.