Friday 2 January 2009

Print dominates

Print vs the Internet.


Exhibit A in the argument that Sun Media print newspapers tower over the Internet is a chart showing Quebecor Inc.'s 2003-2008 performance.

It was created by a reliable TSF source using Quebecor's own financials fed through Excel to see just how 'badly'' the newspaper segment was performing.

(The source says the above chart, which does not represent 2008 fourth quarter performances, shows the operating profit figures in millions of dollars. So the X axis goes up to $250 million.)

"Although it may not be apparent from looking at the chart, the Internet/Portals segment and Interactive Technologies and Communications reported profits in all the years from 2003 to 2008," says the source. "However, they are so small in comparison to the newspaper profits that they barely register on the chart.

"If PKP is betting the farm on the future of the Internet, he better have some digital rabbit he can pull out of a hat, because to date Quebecor has failed to figure out how to monetize the Internet."

TSF thanks the source for time spent on the performance chart.

It leaves us speechless.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this. Someone should send it to PKP.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's somewhat deceptive, in that more than half that blue revenue came from the two western papers, operating in an oil boom economy. So this doesn't reflect that things are healthy in Toronto, Ottawa, London or Winnipeg, because they're not.

    But it does show that, regardless of where the money is being made right now, people still care a heck of a lot more about getting news from newspapers than from online; the grotesque acceleration of the transference from one medium to the other is ridiculous, and will cripple a lot of businesses.

    Instead, Quebecor could be using its market strength to build a dominant position based on quality and complimentary-but-independent platforms. Total retards, top heavy, couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.

    The shameful thing is, thanks to their ongoing profit margins in western Canada, which are still more than double the industry norms, they think the current business model is working.

    By the time real online news portability and new forms of journalism have reashaped media for the next century, Quebecor Media will probably have long shut down, after flushing away any reason -- primarily, local content -- for people to buy their products.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's somewhat deceptive, in that more than half that blue revenue came from the two western papers, operating in an oil boom economy. So this doesn't reflect that things are healthy in Toronto, Ottawa, London or Winnipeg, because they're not.

    But it does show that, regardless of where the money is being made right now, people still care a heck of a lot more about getting news from newspapers than from online; the grotesque acceleration of the transference from one medium to the other is ridiculous, and will cripple a lot of businesses.

    Instead, Quebecor could be using its market strength to build a dominant position based on quality and complimentary-but-independent platforms. Total (goofs), top heavy, couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.

    The shameful thing is, thanks to their ongoing profit margins in western Canada, which are still more than double the industry norms, they think the current business model is working.

    By the time real online news portability and new forms of journalism have re-shaped media for the next century, Quebecor Media will probably have long shut down, after flushing away any reason - primarily, local content - for people to buy their products.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Read this column on the London Free Press and it got me thinking that PKP should be thinking about those horrific Osprey sites that had a "makeover" in late 2007.


    http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Today/Columnists/Brown_Dan/2009/01/08/7955726.html

    ReplyDelete