2.01 Print-Newspapers

Newspapers, believe it or not, make a lot of money. Studies show that newspapers make more money than television and sources of news. That's probably the reason as to why they are still around, or else we would have gotten rid of them as soon as tablets, computers, or even the internet was invented. I don't know many people my age that read the newspaper, but I know older people do. Older meaning people living on their own, parents, and even grandparents, but why is this? And how in the world do newspapers still make so much money?

About two thirds of a newspaper's revenue comes from the advertisements inside of them. These ads are printed and displayed in the paper, paid for by the companies who requested them of course.Classified advertisements make money for a newspaper but not as much as retail does. A small shop on the corner of a busy street couldn't afford as much advertisement space as a company like Kellog's. Advertisement space is sold according to the spot on the paper. For instance, it would cost more to put your ad on the front page than it would on the back page. The size of the advertisement is taken into consideration as well.Word count, bold or italicized fonts, length of publication; all of this would cost more money than a plain ad of 1-25 words with no font manipulations. Maybe you want to advertise but don't want to deal with all of these options. Why not try an insert? Inserts are those small papers within the paper telling you about Publix's sales this week, Khol's Holiday specials, and coupons for brand names.

Inserts

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The rest of the money made comes from other seemingly interesting things such as subscriptions. Subscriptions give you the choice of daily deliveries, weekly Sunday papers, combinations of the two, you name it. This is convenient because this way someone doesn't have to go to a grocery store or gas station every Sunday morning, or even every day, to buy the paper. Not to mention getting a subscription gives you a huge discount because you paid for a year of papers rather than having to deal with the raising of prices for newspapers in different stores throughout the year. Ugh, that awful moment when the store closest to you has the Sunday paper for $3 but the one 10 miles away has it for $2.25. Putting that aside, newspapers also (of course) make money from newsstands and newspaper vending machines

That explains the amount of money they make but remember that other sources have advertisements too. There are commercials on television, and advertisements on websites of news sources and blogs, so how do printed advertisements make more money than them? After some research, I only found opinions from people in the business world: "...they have less expressive power, they don't seduce...and they're annoying." Unable to find anything other than opinions, here's my logical explanation for it: Well, like I said, older people read the newspaper so the ads are aimed at their age group. Cereal coupons, grocery store sales, specials for yoga classes, holiday sales; this is what their age group pays attention to. Most ads online/ on television are for shoe companies, dating services, other websites, games, toys, etc. and this interests younger kids, teens, maybe young adults, but it doesn't interest the older age group and the older age group is the one with money.

Sources:

Waltenburg, Deborah. "How Does a Newspaper Make Money?" EHow. Demand Media, 22 Dec. 2008. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

Rogers, Tony. "Which Form of News Media Makes the Most Money? Newspapers." About. About.com, n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

Rogers, Tony. "Have Newspapers Been Led Astray by the False Promise of Digital Advertising?" About. About.com, n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.