World Media Economics and Management Conference 2016

Concerns about the closure of newspapers began in the second half of the twentieth century and have been exacerbated by the development of the Internet and unsupportive economic conditions, leading many to project the imminent death of newspapers. Their rationale is based on simple economic and technical reasoning that considers newspapers as a single product and ignores the underlying economic and business considerations of enterprises producing joint products—something that most newspapers do by producing print and digital products. This paper explores why different types of analysis are required in this situation and introduces the concepts of shut-down, split-off and tipping points that need be considered when determining the performance of joint products and whether to cease production of one of the joint products. The authors assert that these explain why news currently remains in print even though the news enterprises also produce and compete in digital news provision.