Nope, you read it right. The new year started with some old news: the newspaper industry is dying because fewer people are buying its product, those people are moving online to get their news and online ad revenues don’t fill the revenue gap. And, the industry’s death spiral is gathering momentum now that the online ad market is cratering too. When a property like the New York Times starts talking about its own dire financial straights, you know the industry is operating on fumes.

eMarketer suggests that the industry look for another business model beyond advertising. And, they are right, have a look at David Carr’s take on the situation. But that advice holds true for every other media property that is dependent upon advertising revenue – which is probably darn near close to 100% of them.

So much of the discussion is focused on the ad side of the business, which is understandable since that is the “money side.” But little is written about the reason for that. The money side is caving because readers are disappearing. But, does it really have to be that way? As much as I complain about the New York Times, I still have it delivered to the house every day and buy it when I am on the road. I like reading the physical paper in the morning (it is sort of a ritual) and the $1 that I spend to keep that ritual alive is a small price to pay. I’ve thought about dumping it recently since my perception is that the quality of the news reporting has declined, but for now, the buck I spend isn’t too heavy a price to pay for the overall benefit I receive from the paper (and the continuation of my ritual). Will I continue to spend $1 if the reporting continues to deteriorate? Probably not. Would I spend $2.50 if the paper’s quality were to improve? Probably, since I also subscribe to the Wall St. Journal which costs more to buy. The real question is, how many other people would too? But I surely wouldn’t spend any more money for a crappy quality paper, (and I probably wouldn’t spend any less money either) which is sort of where this whole thing seems to be heading.

There have been many projects started that were to have “saved” the news industry but they have failed to deliver readers, advertisers or results since they forgot to look at the side of the media platform that is essential to ringing the cash register – the readers. It’s really time for publishers to stop talking about their problems and get back to the business of producing a quality product that people want to buy before it is too late. That probably means thinking a whole lot differently about the product, its purpose and its value and finding other ways to monetize their assets. The big decision for publishers is whether they want to be like American Express or Western Union or IBM which have successfully reinvented themselves each time their business was put at risk or like the typewriter industry which just disappeared.