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The Death of Newspapers: 5 Opportunities for Entrepreneurs

Declining circulation and declining advertising dollars in a down economy are accelerating the inevitable – the death of the local newspaper. Now I’m not saying that every newspaper will die, nor will they all fade away tomorrow. But when it looks like the New York Times may have to pay money to a buyer of the venerable Boston Globe, isn’t the end near for all but the largest global brands?

For me, the word “newspaper” has become an oxymoron. It no longer contains news – most everything I see in print I already saw on my PC or my smart phone. And it is printed – a dying (and decidedly eco-unfriendly) medium in the electronic age.

I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post years ago. Cancelled my Wall Street Journal subscription this year. And I no longer receive the Sunday New York Times. The only times I find myself actually reading a newspaper is when I travel – when one is left at my door, and I either read it on the recumbent bike in the gym or read it on the airplane.

I write this post as I am flying from San Francisco to Virginia. I picked up a Wall Street Journal from the hotel, but didn’t read it until I reached the airplane. But what I found was that 9 out of 10 stories that drew my attention – I had already read on my smartphone (because the WSJ app for both the blackberry and iphone is terrific!). So once I got to the paper – it was already old news.

So I got to thinking. If newspapers continue their agonizing death, what opportunities does their demise create for entrepreneurs? Those opportunities all center around advertising. Because big money is spent every year by advertisers in newspapers. Where will all of that money go? Will it go online? To national papers? To neighborhood and local papers? To television? Radio? Smart Phones? I don’t have all of the answers – but present a few areas for entrepreneurs to think about.

1. Coupons. The paper coupon industry is big. Hundreds of billions of coupons distributed annually and billions redeemed. They primarily reach us through the mail (Valpak) or through the newspaper. The consumer packaged goods companies lead the way in the volume game here and pay the “distributors” -the newspapers and mail-bundlers – to get their coupons to potential customers. How will this model change? Will the CPG companies try to develop direct relationships with consumers? Will they try to distribute more coupons at the point of sale? Will they work with grocery chains to make them available via email or a website of some type? Will they develop a push-app for your smart phone with code redemption at the store? Lots of opportunities for great entrepreneurs to solve this problem. 

2. Classifieds. Craigslist is a great start. But it is a bit of a Wild Wild West for many people. Will there by a new Craigs list variant? A virtual classifieds site accessible via search in smart phone apps? Will the neighborhood papers take this market over? Might Amazon develop an Amazon Local? This is a tough problem to solve as it involves creating new critical mass marketplaces. But the money will be there for those who solve it cleverly. 

3. Free Standing Inserts. Remember that pound of flyers in your sunday paper? The sales inserts from Macys, Best Buy, Office Depot and dozens of other national retailers? How will they advertise their sales? This is a big unsolved problem for which I have not seen a clever solution. And the answer does not lie in push email or simple web advertising. 

4. Home Sales and Rentals. Again a big dollar advertiser for newspapers. Much of this probably goes hyper-local. To the community papers. Much moves online to the Re/Max’s of the world. Maybe MLS moves in to the business. Or Zillow or others try to be the information clearing house. But everything out there today is search driven: show me town houses between $200k – $400k in zip code 20190. Lost in this paradigm is the “discovery” ability today in newspapers – seeing a property perhaps out of your price range or preferred location. Maybe the search algorithms need a bit more of Amazon’s “People who looked at this house also looked at these houses” magic. 

5. New & Used Car Sales. Not the best of time to think about car sales. But they sure use up a lot of ink today. These dealers face the same problem as the real estate companies. Sure, you can search inventory and compare pricing lots of ways. And that works great if you know what you are looking for. But traditional print advertising is designed to get people to think about different models and price points than they might otherwise. Not something offered up in today’s electronic models.

So my goal here was not to toss business plan ideas to entrepreneurs. Rather to plant a few seeds in the minds of many to solve soon-to-be problems. High class problems no doubt if you are the right entrepreneur.