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Hold those presses. All is not gloom!

MPS, like many other commentators, has written about the demise of newspapers around the world, principally in the USA. Many newspapers, if not already gone, are said to be teetering on closure.

But, this report on Yahoo! News tells us that newspaper sales have actually grew globally by 1.3 % in 2008:

"Global newspaper sales inched up last year, contradicting gloomy predictions that dailies face extinction, as gains in Africa, Asia and Latin America offset slumps in Europe and the US, an industry group said Wednesday.

Newspaper sales grew 1.3 percent worldwide last year from 2007 to 539 million daily, a rise of 8.8 percent over the past four years, said Gavin O'Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers.

"The sector continues to grow," he said at the start of a two-day WAN conference in Barcelona, adding media commentators were making a "mistake" when they predicted the death of daily newspapers.

Dailies in wealthier nations are struggling due to the impact of the Internet and the slump in advertising caused by the economic downturn."

Continue reading, here, to find out where newspapers are headed.

Interestingly, just today Bloomberg reports [as reported on Media Channel] that The NY Times is lifting its cover price by a staggering 25%:

"U.S. publishers are betting readers will fork over a few more quarters for their newspaper, one of the few ways they can boost revenue as advertisers cut spending.

New York Times Co.’s flagship newspaper will cost $2 at newsstands as of June 1, a 50-cent increase, and subscription prices also will rise. A.H. Belo Corp. said this month it will consider more increases next year after raising the Dallas Morning News 25 cents to $1 in February.

Price increases at the Washington Post and Tampa Tribune also paid off with higher circulation revenue, a rare area of improvement in an industry that posted declines in advertising and readership in the past year. Ad sales have dropped so low that publishers said they are willing to lose some readers to get more money out of the loyal ones.

“Those rate hikes will continue as long as they can keep pushing them through,” Alexia Quadrani, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst in New York, said in an interview. “Circulation is relatively a positive story, but unfortunately it doesn’t do too much to offset the declining advertising.”

In 2007, readers paid 35 cents for the Washington Post, less than half the current newsstand price of 75 cents, and $1 for the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, which now costs $2".

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