How will the print industry survive? What is the impact of demassification?

As we enter a new world of on-line print, the newspaper and magazine industries are struggling to survive with the traditional approach of ink on paper publications. To survive, the magazine and newspaper industries have merged many of their publications under group ownership and made drastic cost cutting sacrifices due to loss of advertising revenue and a strong decline in readership. One way to off set this downfall was to focus their magazine towards special interest groups that advertisers would most benefit from reaching. This impact of demassification on print media was essential in their survival. Advertisers who brought in revenue and led to profits could now target the consumer who would most likely buy or use their product. They could now focus their advertisements in a specific interest magazine. However, as the book publishing industry has also felt the pinch from this tight economy, it’s been to a much lesser extent. This is because their cost basis didn’t rely on advertising but on an educated consumer or reader. Book publishers are not as threatened by on-line competition, except perhaps by the emergence of the e-reader. But this type of readership hasn’t hit the masses yet. However to survive in these hard economic times, book companies have had to consolidate and merge companies and some have moved their operations overseas in order to survive. Textbook publications are not in jeopardy, as are trade books, such as the novel. To survive they have used the “print on demand” method, which instead of mass producing books to sit in warehouses, they are stored digitally and then printed on an as needed basis. The book print industry’s survival may also be in targeting the young readers of today, enticing them to read instead of surf the net. Clearly, the print industry is being threatened by the online convenience of information and must find ways to deal with this.