Will coronavirus become the newspaper industry’s final battle?

The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented surge in media reporting, phenomenal rise in readership and a relentless demand for reliable news in the past few months.

But in a cruel paradox, while journalists are performing an essential business in diligently covering every aspect of the pandemic, the business of the newspaper itself is facing an extinction-level threat across countries and communities due to collapsing revenues.

According to a Digiday survey, 88% of top publishing executives of legacy media companies expect to be nowhere near their business goals this year due to the outbreak, and 85% also expect to see a sharp decline in advertisement revenues triggered by shutdowns due to the pandemic. The virus, industry experts have warned, will spell the end for hundreds of news companies and titles unless radical intervention measures are adopted by the collective initiative of companies, governments and global tech giants, who have profited for long from the content generated and published by journalists.

source:gulfnews