To print or not to print?

I don’t know about you, but I quite like a newspaper. It doesn’t even seem to matter what newspaper to be honest; I’ll just as happily settle for a copy of The Evening Standard or The Metro as I will The Telegraph or The Independent. It’s not just the content that appeals but also the physical form; being able to flick through the pages, before settling down with a huge cup of coffee to mull over the worlds news is all part of the fun.

But recently, I’ve found that I am switching on my laptop for my daily fix of news. While I hate to abandon my beloved dailies for the internet, it is very easy to understand why this has become such a habit. The convenience of and – let’s be honest – the freeness of the internet is a huge incentive; money stricken students can Facebook The Guardian, businessmen can “app” The Times on the tube and lazy lay-ins have been transformed, with people climbing back into bed with their laptop on a Saturday morning rather than trotting down the road for their copy of The Telegraph.

However, despite this seemingly unstoppable march towards a print free future, most newspapers are now discovering how difficult it is to make the web pay; readers are fickle creatures, distracted easily by weight loss tips and cute kitten videos and most tend to literally switch off at the slightest hint of a pay-wall, no matter how loyal a reader they may be. Compare the readership and predicted revenue of The Daily Mail Online, an admittedly shoddy publication at best, to the prestigious, now fully pay-walled-up Times and despite the obvious difference in quality, the Mail comes out on top.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/29/mail-online-revenue-paywall)

I reckon then, once online sites are forced to bring in more pay-walls, subscriptions and “premium-content-for-paying-customers”, the novelty will wear off. Reportedly, a “survey in April by Deloitte found that 88% of magazine readers in the UK still prefer to consume articles via print” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/03/who-says-print-is-dead) so it seems that all hope for print is not yet lost.

So all hail the humble newspaper, get off The Mail Online and for goodness sake, turn off that kitten.