MURDOCH GIVES NEWSPAPERS 15 YEARS MAX

Media mogul, and global newspaper proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, says printed newspapers have 15 years left in them, and that’s only with “a lot of luck.”

Speaking in a rare interview to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of The Australian, which isn’t known for making profits, Murdoch said, “You get on a train, public transport? You see anyone with a paper? You see no one. Now they're reading all the facts, on their phones.”

The media baron owns the largest share of the Australian newspaper market, and owns what, outside of WA, are virtually the only newspaper print plants still running. News has actually just created a new newspaper plant at Truganina on the outskirts of Melbourne, which prints virtually every paper in Victoria. Its lease runs until 2030.

The site prints News Corp papers, including the Herald Sun and The Australian, as well as Nine mastheads The Age and the Australian Financial Review, and newspapers for Australian Community Media (ACM).

Newspapers have been part of the staple of life for 200 years, but Murdoch confirmed what has been obvious to many for the past decade, the end is nigh. Together with TV stations switching to internet streaming only for transmission, it means that the world will be completely dependent on the internet for news.

Plummeting declines in Australian printed newspaper readership and advertising sales have seen mass closures, the rate of closure turbo charged during Covid, and which is still going on.

Now the decision by Facebook and Instagram owner Meta not to renew its news contracts with local publishers, and the $200m that goes with it, will hit the metro titles, and could have profound implications for remaining regional community newspapers. The community newspaper sector has already been in steep decline since Covid, with in excess of 100 local printed newspapers lost forever. Now dozens more printed local papers could join them.

Already the 126-year-old Broken Hill newspaper Barrier Daily Truth has closed its doors, with the threat of no Meta money meaning it could not carry a $176,000 debt.

The Australian and New Zealand newspaper industries are not alone, every western country in the world is facing the same issues. Evidence on the impact on the print industry is stark, earlier this year Dr Andreas Plessker, CEO of Koenig & Bauer, which along with manroland dominated the newspaper press sector, told Print21 that the company’s newspapers manufacturing operation had gone from a billion euros a year to one press a year “if we’re lucky”.