New Zealand Newspapers

New Zealand newspapers’ future is strong and not likely to follow global trends of retrenchment, says a new research. Ian F. Grant, a Wairarapa-based writer and publisher, stated that the nation's small newspaper market which is regionally based goes on to make papers important and the least expensive yet effective manner to reach consumers. According to Grant, newspapers must accomplish two things to keep going: deliver accurate, relevant, in-depth, and local news, and gain revenue from advertisements.

He further states that the United Kingdom and the United States as well as other markets are not up to standard.

There had been several cutbacks in staff, sacrificing content which is compelling, and the revenue from advertisements had decreased enormously, due to the competition from other media (television and radio) as well as the recession which is really a global problem.

He says that instead of keeping their readers happy, they are doing their best to keep the people on Wall Street happy, which translates to their having to produce a bigger profit. The revenue of United States newspapers had sharply dropped and many eminent newspapers confronted bankruptcy or had folded. Such is not the case in New Zealand, since the revenue of newspapers as still more than any other medium (television and radio) and very few had folded in recent years, according to Grant. Although there has been a slight decrease in readership over the years, it has still managed to stay high.

In a 1993 survey, readers over the age of 15 for daily newspapers was over 1.7 million and by the end of 2008 it was over 1.6 million.

Even though newspapers in New Zealand had cut back, it had not been as much less as in the United States, where cutbacks were three times more, said Grant.

The nation's newspaper quality content and revenue from advertisements had stayed strong because the market of the newspaper market is local, small, and it regionalized. The newspapers of the United States had a much bigger market with national and local radio, television, and newspapers vying for content and advertising. The 23 daily New Zealand newspapers supplied local advertising and local content, which other media competitions were not able to do, according to Grant.

The nation’s small population would create a challenge for television to flourish as newspapers had.

If local television had been able to infiltrate several regions, it would have made it hard for newspapers to last, he debated.

In the United States there were several websites vying with newspapers, unlike in the websites of New Zealand which were dominated the two important groups of newspapers, Fairfax Media and APN.

The two companies were owned by Australians and in better form than those in the United Kingdom and the United States, said Grant.

Though the newspapers in New Zealand appear to have a good future with a market structure functioning to their advantage, Grant observes that newspapers will still go through a hard time due to the recession. His findings are mentioned in a book he is authoring, which delves into the New Zealand newspapers’ history from the 1840s until the present.