TechCrunch: Newspapers have never made much money from news, says Google’s chief economist
March 10th, 2010Posted by Judith Townend in Advertising, Editors' pick, Events, Newspapers, Search
TechCrunch has a summary of a presentation by Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, on the decline of newspaper advertising revenues.
“The fact of the matter is that newspapers have never made much money from news,” says Varian. They make money from “special interest sections on topics such as Automotive, Travel, Home & Garden, Food & Drink, and so on.” The problem is that on the web, other niche sites which cater to those categories are a click away, leaving the newspapers with sections which are harder to sell ads against, such as sports, news, and local.
Presentation below:
March 11th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
[...] TechCrunch: Newspapers have never made much money from news, says Google’s chief economist | J… – “The fact of the matter is that newspapers have never made much money from news,” says Varian. They make money from “special interest sections on topics such as Automotive, Travel, Home & Garden, Food & Drink, and so on.” The problem is that on the web, other niche sites which cater to those categories are a click away, leaving the newspapers with sections which are harder to sell ads against, such as sports, news, and local. [...]