The decline in newspapers: MM case studies

What was the New Day trying to achieve?

The aim of New Day was to try to target and gain readership for newspapers from people that normally didn't read newspapers. They had hoped to create a modernised idea and approach to news which didn't focus on the political aspect of all news like most other newspapers.

List the key statistics on the first page: how many people buy newspapers in the UK? How has this declined in the last year?

• Over a million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past two years
• What is currently available on the newsstand is not meeting their needs
• Six million people buy a newspaper in Britain every day.

What audience were the New Day trying to attract?

The New Day hoped to attract a middle aged both male and female audience aged about 30-55. This suggest that their target demographic was the modernised populace that chose not to use newspapers as an information outlet.

Why do you think the New Day failed so spectacularly? There are several possible reasons listed in the article but do develop your own opinion here as well.

I personally that the New Day's failure was due to the fact that the company did not realise that the industry was dying quite rapidly due to the increase in new digital media. This meant that instead of actually adapting their existing product they were deciding on creating yet another product that was similar to their dying platforms with little changes.

The Guardian

List the key statistics on page 10: How many unique digital browsers used the Guardian website in June 2016? What are The Guardian's latest print sales figures? How does this compare to the Telegraph? In terms of finances, how much did the Guardian lose in 2015? 

• The February 2016 statistics record the Guardian as having nearly 9 million ‘average daily browsers’
• The print circulation of the Guardian was only 161,000.
• Way behind the Daily Telegraph (472,000)
• In the course of 2015, the Guardian reportedly lost ‘around £70 million
• This led to cutbacks of 20%

What has been The Guardian's strategy for reversing this decline?

In order to tackle the decline in their industry, the Guardian chose to taken on the strategy of developing 24 hour coverage for major world news events. This was developed by making the Guardian interconnected across the globe as it's different branches would take over different stories at different times in order to target the changing audiences for their outlet due to time zones.

What global event did The Guardian's digital coverage win awards for?

The Guardian's digital coverage won awards at the 2015 Press Awards for their reporting on the Charlie Hebdo Paris attacks.

In your opinion, will the global website strategy be enough to save The Guardian?

I personally think that it will be, this is due to the fact that they are able to accurately identify the best way to adapt their outlet and focus more on the expansion of the digital media aspects. However, at the same time, they are giving this expansion an extra boost by expanding the range of their readership by targeting a greater populace for their news.