Newspaper Decline Not Due to the Rise of the Internet Some people assume that newsprint newspapers are dying at the hands of

Newspaper Decline Not Due to the Rise of the Internet
   Some people assume that newsprint newspapers are dying at the hands of the internet. But a US economics professor will have none of it.
   According to a study by Chicago university’s Matthew Gentzkow, "Trading dollars for dollars: the price of attention online and offline" , the assumption is based on three false premises.
   Fallacy one: Online advertising revenues are naturally lower than print revenues, so traditional media must adopt a less profitable business model that cannot support paying real reporters.
   " This perception that online ads are cheaper to buy is all about people quoting things in units that are not comparable to each other—doing apples-to-oranges comparisons," Gentzkow writes.
   Online ad rates are typically discussed in terms of the "number of unique monthly visitors" the ad receives, while circulation numbers determine newspaper rates.
   Several different studies already have shown that people spend more time with newspapers and magazine than the average monthly visitor online, which makes looking at these rates as analogous incorrect.
   By comparing the amount of time people actually see an ad, Gentzkow finds that the price of attention for similar consumers is actually higher online.
   Fallacy two: The web has made the advertising market more competitive, which has driven down rates and, in turn, revenues. That, says Gentzkow, just isn’t so.
   Fallacy three: The net is responsible for the demise of the newspaper industry. No, writes Gentzkow, the popularity of papers had already significantly diminished between 1980 and 1995, well before the internet age.
   And, he finds, sales of papers have dropped at roughly the same rate ever since. He concludes: "People have not stopped reading newspapers because of the internet. "