Figure 1. Estimated newspaper publishing market decline in OECD countries, 2007-2009 (in per cent)

…[A] new OECD report looking at “The Future of News and the Internet”. It contains new data and analysis on the global newspaper industry and the challenges presented by the Internet. Its main message is that “large country-by-country and title-by-title differences and the data currently do not lend themselves to make the case for “the death of the newspaper”, in particular if non-OECD countries and potential positive effects of the economic recovery are taken into account.” The full report, including data and charts, is available at http://www.oecd.org/document/48/0,3343,en_2649_34223_45449136_1_1_1_1,00.html

After very profitable years, newspaper publishers in most OECD countries face declining advertising revenues, titles and circulation. The economic crisis has amplified this downward development.

About 20 out of 30 OECD countries face declining newspaper readership, with significant decreases in some OECD countries. Newspaper readership is usually lower among younger people who tend to attribute less importance to print media. In OECD countries, the general, regional and local press have been hardest hit and 2009 was expected to be the worst year for OECD newspapers, with the largest declines in the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Canada, and Spain (but much a much smaller impact on countries such as Austria, Australia (See above).

But in emerging economies, for example, the average daily paid newspaper circulation has been growing for a number of years (see Figure 2 below): by about 35 per cent in the BIICS countries from 2000 to 2008, most notably India with a 45 per cent increase in circulation between 2000 and 2008, South Africa (34 per cent) and China (an estimated 29 per cent). Other countries and continents, including Africa and South America, are also gaining readers. This rise has compensated for the drop in OECD paid circulation and led to an actual increase in the number of world newspapers – by 14 per cent from 2002-2008.

Figure 2. Paid for dailies average total daily circulation
2000-2008 (in millions). Worldwide, OECD, BIICS (Brazil, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa)

Source: OECD based on data from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

For more information on OECD work on the Information Economy, see here

www.oecd.org

Take a look at the main press release re: these latest penetration data. Of note:

The strongest per-capita subscriber growth over the year was in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Luxembourg. Each country added more than 5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the past year…. Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea and Norway and Iceland lead the OECD in broadband penetration, each with over 29 subscribers per 100 inhabitants.

Full press release below:

OECD Broadband Statistics to June 2007

This release of the June 2007 data on OECD broadband subscribers coincides with the launch of a broadband statistics portal (http://www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband) which will contain additional indicators from November 2007. These include: broadband prices; advertised broadband speeds; household broadband usage, the number of households with a home computer; and the number of businesses with broadband connections and company websites.

OECD broadband statistics (June 2007)

Over the past year, the number of broadband subscribers in the OECD increased 24% from 178 million in June 2006 to 221 million subscribers in June 2007. This growth increased broadband penetration rates in the OECD from 15.1 in June 2006 to 18.8 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants one year later.

* Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea and Norway and Iceland lead the OECD in broadband penetration, each with over 29 subscribers per 100 inhabitants.

* The strongest per-capita subscriber growth over the year was in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Luxembourg. Each country added more than 5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the past year.

* Operators in several countries continue upgrading subscriber lines to fibre. Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and Fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) subscriptions now comprise 8% of all broadband connections in the OECD, up from 7% a year ago, and the percentage is growing. Fiber connections account for 36% of all Japanese broadband subscriptions and 31% in Korea.

* The United States is the largest broadband market in the OECD with 66.2 million subscribers. US broadband subscribers represent 30% of all broadband connections in the OECD.

OECD broadband pricing (October 2007) – all given in USD using purchasing power parities (PPP)

* The average price of a month broadband subscription in the OECD is USD 49. On average, fibre to the home/building is the most expensive (USD 51) and fixed wireless the cheapest (USD 33)

* The average price per advertised Mbit/s of connectivity in the OECD is USD 18. Japan, France, Sweden, Korea and Finland have the least expensive offers per Mbit/s
o Japan: USD 0.13
o France : USD 0.33
o Sweden: USD 0.35
o Korea: USD 0.38
o Finland: USD 0.42

* Fibre connections are nearly 5 times less expensive per Mbit/s than DSL, cable or wireless.
o DSL: USD 19.21
o Cable: USD 18.96
o Fiber to the home/building: 3.75
o Wireless: USD 18.69

OECD broadband speeds

* The average advertised download speed in the OECD is 13.7 Mbit/s.

* The fastest average advertised download speeds are in Japan (93 Mbit/s), France (44 Mbit/s), Korea (43 Mbit/s) and Sweden (21 Mbit/s)

* Japan has the fastest residential download speed available in the OECD at 1 Gbit/s ( 1 Gbit/s = 1000 Mbit/s)

* Fibre-to-the-home advertised download speeds in the OECD average 77.1 Mbit/s, much higher than DSL (9.0 Mbit/s), cable (8.6 Mbit/s) or fixed wireless (1.8 Mbit/s).

* Advertised upload speeds on fibre connections are more than 36 times faster than average advertised upload speeds on DSL, cable or wireless networks.
o Fibre-to-the-home/building: 58.6 Mbit/s
o DSL: 1.6 Mbit/s
o Cable: 0.7 Mbit/s
o Fixed wireless: 0.7 Mbit/s

OECD broadband bit/data caps

* Explicit bit/data caps are imposed on broadband connections in 20 of the 30 OECD countries.

* There we no bitcaps among surveyed firms in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States

* All surveyed offers had bitcaps in Australia (48), Belgium (10), Canada (13) and New Zealand (33)

* The average bit cap size across offers with caps is 21 gigbytes (GB) of traffic per month

* Once a user reaches the monthly bit cap, the ISP reduces download speeds in 29% of the offers to an average speed of 82 kbit/s.

* In the remaining 71% of offers, once a user reaches the monthly bit cap they pay an average of USD 0.03 per additional MB (USD 34 per additional GB) until the end of the month