Print still dying slowly, painfully

Rupert Murdoch, you prophet: today’s papers bring more evidence that that the death knell’s a-soundin’ for print journalism (at least we think it was in the papers, we read it all online).

At the Wall Street Journal, earnings dropped by 54 percent at parent Dow Jones, with online operations cashing in higher than the august Journal and, uh, august Barron’s. WSJ ad revenue fell by 8 percent.

At the New York Times, profit at the newspaper unit fell 21 percent in the first quarter of 2005 as newsprint prices rise and readers gravitate to the online edition (with that helpful “Most Emailed” function that lets us read Jenny 8 whenever we want!).

But bad news for print is good news for online profitability in the question of whether newspapers should – gasp! – make us pay for content. Jay Rosen at PressThink crunches the numbers accordingly:

WSJ.com subscribers are at 731,000, or 5.2% above the same quarter last year. That means the Journal’s online edition has a paid list larger than paid print circulation at all but six newspapers in the U.S. (A subscription costs $79 a year, or $39 if you already subscribe to the Journal on paper.) Meanwhile, traffic keeps growing. Total usage this quarter–the number of subscribers coming to the site each day–is up 20 percent over last year.

Whatever. We just want someone to tell us what’s important.

A Sluggish Quarter for Dow Jones and the Times Company [NYT]
TIMES’ PAPER PROFIT DROPS 21% [NY Post]
WEAKENED JOURNAL [NY Post]
Can Papers End the Free Ride Online? [NYT]
Q & A with Bill Grueskin, Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal Online [PressThink]

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