Where is the media industry going ? This is a question which has to be answered urgently, for the sake of both journalists and media companies.  Already, many print media titles, suffering from the competition of free online information via the internet and from the blog explosion, are on the edge of the precipice :  readership is down, circulation is dropping and advertising revenues are plummeting. The traditional role model of having to sell an information support twice – to both readers and advertisers – is being seriously questioned.  The photo journalism sector is also suffering, from the boom in infotainment and the predominance of newswires charging fixed rates as well as the low-cost production and circulation of digital images.

Up till now, no viable business model has been found anywhere in the world to replace today’s equilibrium in the print media sector. No major daily newspaper, weekly publication or magazine has found the solution by giving away online what they sell on the newsstands. And while, of course, going completely online enables them to reduce costs, it also leads to a total collapse of their advertising revenues.

More and more readers are going to the Google home page to get the news.  How can anybody earn a living by writing, taking photographs or even publishing newspapers or magazines when Twitter sends information – whether reliable or not – around the world in a few seconds ? In the long term, will the never-ending battle to reduce editorial costs be the death of journalism as a profession, or at least as a financially viable profession ?

The media worldwide : key figures

2008 :  In the US, 100 daily newspapers no longer exist

Circulation figures are at their lowest since 1946

2000-2008  : In France, print media revenues dropped by 16%

Advertising revenues dropped by 20%