The consumption of print and publishing material

What this chapter covers

Introduction: assessing the material available to researchers for the publishing industry – the data

Interpretation and judgement

European consumption and trends

Household measurement: disposable income

Mass retail (the supermarket and the hypermarket)

‘Distance sales’ (online sales)

Newspapers

‘Free newspapers’

Periodicals, magazines and reviews

Books

Advertising sector

Consumption: European policy

Consumption: national policies

Reflections

Learning objectives

When you have completed this chapter you will be able to:

Identify a variety of sources that can be used to assess the print and publishing consuming environment.

Outline the interweaving of interests in corporate structures that impact upon consumption.

Ascertain the major corporations operating in the EU print and publishing market.

Discuss the relative differences between ‘mass retail’ and ‘distance sales’ and their impact on the consumption of print and publishing products.

Compare and contrast consumption across a range of products including newspapers, periodicals, magazines, reviews, books and advertising products.

Locate policy developments at EU and national levels.

Themes

Below you will find a simple statement or series of statements around the six themes. They should not be read as a given fact. They are more like hypotheses (see Chapter 2) which need to be proved, discussed, debated and then used in your own analysis of the subject. The ideas and approaches in this book are always to be considered with an open mind; this is important in university study and is what makes it distinct from pre-university study.

Diversity of media

The print, publishing and press industries have always been diverse in consumption across the European scene and in different sectors. The separation of reading habits into the three activities of newspapers, books and magazines is added to by the presence of ‘advertising’ print material which is significant and profitable. Change in the market and convergence are occurring across the sector, but it is a slower process than many think in some areas. So although convergence of consumer habits appears to be happening, diversity remains important in the EU.

Internal/external forces for change

The print industry has been for most EU member states in private hands. Competition is keenly felt in all forms of publication. Although often seen in national terms, competition is increasingly trans-national and even global. However, the internal dynamic of the regional press for example shows the range of pressures within the sector.

Complexity of the media

The fact that the print industry is in the main in private hands does not necessarily make the sector less complex. The historical development of the print industry and the various regulatory controls around it has been deep, wide and various. The most notable change has been the inclusion in recent years, following the downfall of the ‘Iron Curtain’, of Central and Eastern European states who are emerging from state control and censorship. This has allowed for a surge of consumer activity in these areas.

Multi-levels

It is intriguing to note that the press, and especially newspapers, across the EU is more likely to be regional in form than national. Trans-national newspapers do occur but, because of language and printing practice, they often remain better understood in the national sphere. Even so, convergence of production and distribution and a trend toward a concentration of ownership of the print and publishing industries across the EU is happening, and this is a major factor for their immediate future. The full impact of this upon the consumer is yet to be fully evaluated.

European integrative environment

The EU has set out through the Single European Market a framework for company and corporate practice with which the private sector needs to comply. The print and publishing industries, although often nationally described, must now be seen in terms of the EU dimension of the market as much as global or regional pressures. Policies such as ‘right of reply’ and citizenship rights are now a part of the consumer scene for all EU citizens.

Cultural values

Despite the increasing impact of new technology on the sector, reading remains a paper-based exercise for the great majority. Although this will change as the years unfold, as with content, the cultural dimension embedded in the industries remains in many ways beyond the medium, located in deeper social, political, historical and even ideological concerns for the communities that make up the EU. All of these inhabit the world of the EU consumer.

Essentials

The print industry from a consumer’s point of view across Europe is healthy and vibrant, but it faces competitive challenges which are bombarding the consumer: television, internet information, new delivery platforms, larger and more complex markets, all of which are working and being financed on a global as well as a national scale. These are adding to the existing and long-standing range of competitors in newspapers and magazines which operate more at local and national levels.

All of this brings together a range of issues, not only in terms of competitivity and innovation, but also more fundamental questions: what is, for example, a newspaper in the digital age, what is it for, and for whom it is written? Are we heading for a new world where ‘news’ (or information) is apparently ‘free’ and always online? Moreover, and to complicate matters, in the various parts of the European scene, consumer choice is located in different interests which are often local as much as they are trans-national. The answers are not easy.

However, there are signs that the market is changing, but how much and why has encouraged new areas of investigation into consumer behaviour. This occupies owners, editors and journalists and also the financial backers. The list of interested parties does not stop there: advertisers, stock markets, and owners with their own capital, including multi-national, national, regional and local corporations as well as private individuals, infamously called the ‘press barons’ (Curran and Seaton, 2003) in the past or ‘media moguls’ in the present. They are all part of the production, distribution and consumption equation.

In the end, the market will be driven by consumer choice or, more accurately, consumer purchase practice. To date the consumer in the European market while keen on new products is also slower to change than many producers and distributers often portray. In Europe this is due to the persistent national, linguistic and even historical tendencies that underpin the various communities.