What is Print Media Economics?
Print media economics deals with how to earn and spend money and still remain in the newsstands at a profit. It refers to application of economic principles and approaches in operating a print media establishment. This also has to do with financial policy matters and issues of revenue and expenditure in a print medium, including management of material and human resources available to the organization. Print media economics also consists of strategies and mechanics of earning profit from a newspaper or magazine business and the process of budgeting available funds to keep business afloat.
Print media establishments build their financial policies and goals around major revenue generation strategies such as advertising and circulation. Consumer publications depend on circulation (sales), adverts and some other income sources for survival. The greater the circulation and sales volume, the more likely advert patronage will increase. This translates to more profit for the establishment. Achieving this feat is the desire and delight of publishers. Dominick (2002) writes that advertising revenue is closely related to circulation since publications with large circulation are able to charge more for adverts that would reach a larger audience. The internet has positively impacted circulation strategies of the print media as many newspapers, magazines and books have online versions that reach wider and diverse audience members.
Some publications are distributed free of charge in order to achieve wide circulation and they depend on high volume of adverts that may likely follow. However, it has been said that publications especially in this part of the world should have a price tag so that readers will attach value to them. It is believed that people most times tend to attach little or no value to what they did not spend money to acquire. The publication should impress the reader with rich content and aesthetic value so that it would be worth buying at the price it is sold (Nwabueze, 2016). Access to the online version may not be influenced by price tag, rather quality of content matters a lot users to think it is worth spending data checking it out.
