Abstract

QUINTANILHA, Tiago Lima. 2029 - the end of print newspapers in Portugal? A longitudinal study on the main performance indicators in Portugal´s traditional print-newspaper industry. OBS* [online]. 2018, vol.12, n.3, pp.138-155. ISSN 1646-5954.

New digital products and new techniques tend to have a strong influence in the print media sector and in its traditional formats, as these new products and techniques become agents of incremental change (Küng, 2013; Storsul, 2013) and radical and disruptive innovation (Sádaba, 2016a, b, c), by interfering with users' conventional usage and consumption logics. Several authors (Hjarvard, 2012, Barnhurst, 2010, Brock, 2015, Nossek et al., 2015) discuss the effects of technological mutability in the print media sector and in its traditional formats, pointing out almost unanimously to scenarios in which the sales of newspapers in the traditional format have been decreasing steadily over the years, in an Era of hyper-information and immediacy, and due to the rapid migration of news consumers to the online formats supported in multiformats, polycentrality and participation (Queuniet, 2011). By analysing longitudinal data collected by the Portuguese Association for the Control of Circulation (APCT) on the major portuguese newspapers´ sales and print circulation, during the period from 2008 to 2017, we outline a scenario of continued decline in the sales and circulation of newspapers. We also create a new efficiency index in order to calculate the strength of these newspapers in the market. On the other hand, and considering the calculation of the monthly average rate variation sales for the period from 2008 to 2017, we have established the year 2029 as a predicted date of the end of traditional print newspapers in Portugal.

Keywords : Print newspapers; Evolution of the paid and print circulation; Publications´ efficiency index; 2029; Portugal.

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