WAN 2008: Stop fixating on young readers, O’Reilly tells newspaper industry

The newspaper industry should not be fixated with young audiences, Gavin O’Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), said at the organisation’s annual conference today.

The chief information officer of Independent News and Media said publishers should be looking to serve all generations with their print and online products.

The focus on youth is largely driven by the advertising industry, which is ‘transfixed’ by the youth market, he said.

“There’s always been an unnecessary fixation on youth. We need to capture them first.

“We need to market the newspaper for all generations and we also need to explain to the young that while the net is overwhelming in content it is pretty underwhelming in reliability.”

2 thoughts on “WAN 2008: Stop fixating on young readers, O’Reilly tells newspaper industry

  1. Dan Thornton

    Underwhelming in reliability? Presumably he means in the quality of what is being written, rather than the reliablity of the internet itself?

    I’m interested to hear more, as I very rarely see newspapers achieving success in effectively targeting young readers, online or in print.

    Where was this focus when I effectively gave up on daily newspapers and started getting pretty much all content online

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