By Choi Sung-jin
As more and more newspaper readers prefer Internet and mobile papers, traditional newspapers' revenue fell sharply in 2014, industry sources said Tuesday.
According to a survey by the Korea Press Foundation, sales by the entire newspaper industry, both off-line and on-line editions, totaled 3.49 trillion won ($2.91 billion) in 2014, down 1.3 percent from the previous year.
Traditional papers' revenue from selling newspapers stood at 493.4 billion won, a decrease of 15.6 percent from 2013. Daily newspapers' revenue fell 17.9 percent, from 449.1 billion won to 368.9 billion won, while that of weekly papers fell 8.0 percent, from 135.3 billion won to 124.5 billion won, over the cited period.
The hard-copy papers' revenue from selling advertisements also dropped 3.1 percent from 1.83 trillion won to 1.77 trillion won.
The traditional papers instead increased their revenue from supplementary business, such as leasing properties, by 2.0 percent, from 665.3 billion won to 678.8 billion won, and expanded their revenue by a hefty 71.0 percent from selling Internet content, from 61.2 billion won to 104.7 billion won, making up for part of the revenue losses from selling papers and ads.
Internet newspapers, on the other hand, saw their advertisement income rise 20.1 percent to 175.7 billion won, and other income grow 7.9 percent to 213.6 billion won, during the same period, the foundation reported.
"Revenue declines by national daily newspapers which take a large portion of the entire industry led the overall sales decline of newspapers," it said.
As more and more newspaper readers prefer Internet and mobile papers, traditional newspapers' revenue fell sharply in 2014, industry sources said Tuesday.
According to a survey by the Korea Press Foundation, sales by the entire newspaper industry, both off-line and on-line editions, totaled 3.49 trillion won ($2.91 billion) in 2014, down 1.3 percent from the previous year.
Traditional papers' revenue from selling newspapers stood at 493.4 billion won, a decrease of 15.6 percent from 2013. Daily newspapers' revenue fell 17.9 percent, from 449.1 billion won to 368.9 billion won, while that of weekly papers fell 8.0 percent, from 135.3 billion won to 124.5 billion won, over the cited period.
The hard-copy papers' revenue from selling advertisements also dropped 3.1 percent from 1.83 trillion won to 1.77 trillion won.
The traditional papers instead increased their revenue from supplementary business, such as leasing properties, by 2.0 percent, from 665.3 billion won to 678.8 billion won, and expanded their revenue by a hefty 71.0 percent from selling Internet content, from 61.2 billion won to 104.7 billion won, making up for part of the revenue losses from selling papers and ads.
Internet newspapers, on the other hand, saw their advertisement income rise 20.1 percent to 175.7 billion won, and other income grow 7.9 percent to 213.6 billion won, during the same period, the foundation reported.
"Revenue declines by national daily newspapers which take a large portion of the entire industry led the overall sales decline of newspapers," it said.
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