Researcher's Bio
Hugh Martin
Associate Professor, Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Georgia
Focusing on the economics and management of mass media, Hung Martin examines daily and weekly newspapers for relationships between market structure, profits and prices, and variables influencing market entry and exit. Martin spent 12 years as a reporter and editor for The Tampa Tribune. He has covered government, politics, education and NASA. Martin was chief of a suburban bureau and also worked as an editor on the newspaper’s metropolitan desk.
Forum Leader
Esther Thorson
Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, Missouri School of Journalism
"Interactions Between Cost And Revenues Structures And The Challenges of Transitioning from Markets with Less Competition to Markets with More Competition"
Martin presented a less-than-rosy picture of newspaper digital revenues. His research based on 175 newspaper websites estimated that in 2006 newspapers made between 33 to 83 cents per visitor for the entire year. He said that newspapers are getting progressively less of the internet ad revenue pie, with newspaper’s current share at 15 percent and falling, while Google and Yahoo together garner 63 percent and rising. He said that ultimately internet advertising may be a “winner take all” market.
In addition, Martin said, newspaper managers are facing the risk of cannibalization, knowing that some print readers with internet access may abandon the print edition if the same content is available online. Yet like their counterparts in other media industries, newspaper managers face considerable pressure to publish online.
Martin said he is developing online pricing strategies that can help publishers decide how to repurpose, hold back, or charge for online content that also appears in print. His approach is similar to how movie studios have multiple revenue streams from theater showings, pay-per-view, DVD sales, and foreign sales.
A critical question is how much print subscription and advertising revenue is lost and whether that revenue is replaced online. Martin said this can be determined by comparing revenue and readership losses and gains. Martin is working with Professor Steve Wildman of Michigan State University to adapt a formula that Wildman developed to examine changes in revenue when television networks place programs online.
Martin intends to produce an easy-to-understand tool for newspaper managers that will help them decide if placing content online is actually increasing or decreasing revenues. Estimation of the revenue implications of free access to all content will help newspapers consider the question of going from “free to fee,” and what the optimal ratio of free to fee material should be.
Contact Professor Hugh J. Martin at 706-542-5033 or hjmuga@gmail.com