Newspaper circulation declined in print world-wide last year but was more than made up by an increase in digital audiences, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) said Thursday in its annual update of world press trends.

“Circulation is like the sun. It continues to rise in the East and decline in the West,” said Christoph Riess, CEO of WAN-IFRA, who presented the annual survey Thursday at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Vienna, Austria.

The survey found:

• Media consumption patterns vary widely across the globe. Print circulation is increasing in Asia, but declining in mature markets in the West.
• The number of titles globally is consolidating.
• The main decline is in free dailies. “For free dailies, the hype is over,” said Mr Riess.
• For advertisers, newspapers are more time efficient and effective than other media.
• Newspapers reach more people than the internet. On a typical day newspapers reach 20 percent more people world-wide than the internet reaches, ever.
• Digital advertising revenues are not compensating for the ad revenues lost to print.
• Social media are changing the concept and process of content gathering and dissemination. But the revenue model for news companies, in the social media arena, remains hard to find.
• The business of news publishing has become one of constant updating, of monitoring, distilling and repacking information.
• The new digital business is not the traditional newspaper business.

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