Newspaper circulation declined in print world-wide last year but was more than made up by an increase in digital audiences, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) said Thursday in its annual update of world press trends.

In fact, when measured in terms of readership, newspapers reach 2.3 billion people every day, 20 per cent more than the 1.9 billion that the internet reaches world-wide.

"Newspapers have always had a lower percentage of the time spent by the media user, relative to the high advertising revenues that newspapers produce," said Christoph Riess, CEO of WAN-IFRA when he presented the annual survey at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Vienna, Austria.

Mr Riess said newspapers account for 8 per cent of media consumption time, but 20 per cent of all advertising revenue.

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, or WAN-IFRA, is the global organisation of the world’s press, representing more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.

The survey leaves no doubt that Internet consumption is increasing world-wide, to the cost of broadcast more than other media, the report found. Radio consumption in terms of minutes per day has fallen 23 percent since 2006, compared to 7 per cent for newspapers.

"We have always been extremely efficient in using the time of our readers. But now we are in a more challenging environment, because readers are more promiscuous, they have more choices, they read newspapers with less frequency. We have to do more to attract them, find new ways to garner loyalty."

"Circulation is like the sun. It continues to rise in the East and decline in the West," said Mr Riess.

In a statement posted on the WAN-IFRA website, the survey found that media consumption patterns vary widely across the globe and print circulation is increasing in Asia, but declining in mature markets in the West.

The survey shows the number of titles globally is consolidating with the main decline being in free dailies. "For free dailies, the hype is over," said Mr Riess.

For advertisers, shows the survey, newspapers are more time efficient and effective than other media.

“Newspapers reach more people than the internet. On a typical day newspapers reach 20 percent more people world-wide than the internet reaches, ever …digital advertising revenues are not compensating for the ad revenues lost to print,” reads the survey summary in part.

The business of news publishing has become one of constant updating, of monitoring, distilling and repacking information. The new digital business is not the traditional newspaper business.

When measured in minutes per day, media consumption patterns vary widely.

For example, television dominates in the United States, internet accounts for one-third of media time in Austria, and digital gets just a fraction of consumption time in Russia.

Time spent with newspapers is low when considering their impact and influence on society, compared with other media – and to their advertising revenues.

Economic Developments

There appears to be a structural shift in advertising and newspaper revenues. Long mirroring the growth and contraction of Gross Domestic Product, both global advertising revenues and newspaper revenues appear to be decoupling from their patterns related to GDP.

In the 20 years to 2001, advertising revenue increased more than GDP in an upturn, and fell farther than GDP in a downturn.

"But this has not been true since the 2001 downturn," said Mr Riess.

"After 2001, we have had good growth in Asia, but, contrary to the previous 20 years, advertising revenues increases were not higher than GDP during a recovery.

And we have a greater decoupling of newspaper advertising revenues which don’t follow the recovery as in the past. We have a structural change in general, especially in newspapers."

Advertising Expenditures by Media

Television continues to be the world's largest advertising medium, with a total ad expenditure of 180 billion US dollars in 2010. Newspapers were second with $ 97 billion, followed by internet ($62 billion), magazines ($43 billion) and radio ($32 billion).

But newspapers are lagging behind both television and internet when it comes to growth trends, and internet is outpacing both, the survey found. Internet advertising grew 22 percent year-on-year in Asia in 2010, compared with 11 percent for television and 3 percent for newspapers.

In Europe, internet advertising rose 14 percent from 2009, compared with 9 percent for TV, while newspaper advertising fell 1 percent.

Newspaper Circulation

Daily print newspaper circulation declined from 528 million in 2009 to 519 million in 2010, a drop of about 2 percent. But what has been lost to print has been more than made up by digital newspaper readers. Digital audiences are typically a third of print readership. So against a 2 percent decline, digital growth is significantly greater.

But the significance of this is not the total numbers, but in changes in purchasing patterns.

"We get readers, but less regularly," Mr Riess said. "It's the same with digital – the problem isn't visitors, but frequency and depth." Mr Riess said the patterns required a reconsideration of newspaper subscription models, and of finding new ways to convince readers to come back.

Newspaper readership is highest in Iceland, where 96 percent of the population reads a daily newspaper, followed by Japan (92 percent), Norway, Sweden and Switzerland (82 percent), and Finland and Hong Kong (80 percent).

Japan is the leader when it comes newspaper sales, with the average circulation of its newspapers at 461,000 – an enormous total. Austria comes second with an average of 162,000 per title.

The survey shows the Internet advertising model has been well-established, but most of the revenue goes to search engines – 65 percent to Google alone.