Should Newspapers Be Happy With Lower Circulation?

from the ROI dept

We keep seeing stories bemoaning the drop in newspaper circulation numbers among major newspapers, with lots of blame being thrown at the internet (Google and Craigslist most often). However, it appears that some newspapers have finally realized that there's as cost side to the cost-benefit equation -- though, they may have forgotten some of the benefit side. Apparently a bunch of big newspapers have been cutting out expensive aggressive subscriber acquisition techniques (via Romenesko) that result in subscribers who aren't worth very much to the newspaper and often drop their subscriptions before too long anyway. Of course, there is also a flip side to this. Getting more users is a good thing if you can provide them something of value and make money that way. The problem wasn't necessarily that the newspapers spent too much trying to get these users, but that they then didn't provide enough value to make back that investment (and more).

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