While media agencies continue to talk up digital advertising, reports reaffirm the message that print still works.
News Corp chief executive and in Australia, Seven West's Ryan Stokes are on record on the effectiveness of print, and the New York Times has disclosed plans to launch extra print sections.
Meanwhile speculation continues on the degree to which print advertising will suffer as digital advertising moves up to a forecast 56 per cent of ad spending by 2019 according to IPG Mediabrands.
The agency unit predicts digital's growth from 36.5 per cent of Australia's current $12billion spend, with TV falling from 26.6 per cent 19.9 per cent.
News Corp's Robert Thomson has repeated his message that the value of print advertising is being reassessed as advertisers realise they have more control over the environment in which it appears than they do with digital. He told US business analysts print ads were attracting a premium because they are paired with higher-quality content: "The relative value of print to certain clients in a digitally discursive age, it has to be quality print, is increasing," he says.
Rather than dying print is benefitting from a reassessment with advertisers becoming sceptical of digital, and agency group WPP forecasting movement from newspapers was slowing to its lowest rate of decline since 2011. And Thomson says News' Wall Street Journal is even attracting "heavy demand" from tech companies that want to advertise in print: "Tech people know more about digital than anyone and they're advertising in print," he says.
"Advertisers will ask themselves, 'do I really want to be seen next to that story?'," he says.
In an interview with Sharri Markson of The Australian, Ryan Stokes, chief operating officer of Seven Group Holdings - whose interests include Seven Network, Pacific Magazines and the West Australian - he supports Thomson's position on the value of print advertising in the future: "It still works," he says. "We know print advertising is a really important medium and we've found advertisers who pull out come back because there's reach and relevance in what we can do."
The Wall Street Journal reported that the New York Times wants to increase the number of sections it produces as part of a play to maximise cash flow from print, which still which makes up 72 per cent of advertising revenue and 79 per cent of that from circulation.
Chief executive Mark Thompson told a UBS global media conference there were "great opportunities both domestically and internationally" to build out some of the editorial sections.
With steady demand for the print product continuing, the company would go on dedicating resources toward the physical paper while that remained. "Our job is to find out ways to meet the demand for the print product that is still there... which I expect will continue for many, many more years."