There are a bunch of charts out there that are designed to scare anyone associated with the newspaper business. OK, they are designed to give you a quick snapshot of the industry, which might be scary to some in the industry.
The decline of circulation is a tough chart to review. The rise of other media and their increases in revenue can be hard to swallow. For me, the toughest chart is the ad spending vs. time spent with media chart. Newspapers, despite the tumble of revenue, still brings in a lot of revenue. Unfortunately that revenue not in proportion to the amount of time people spend with a newspaper.
So what can be done?
To me, this is not an audience or revenue issue. Clearly the business needs to hold to and grow when possible revenue. The audience needs to be cultivated, especially a younger audience to help secure long term relevance. But the answer to me is better audience engagement!
Content is king. Too many newspapers are still producing the same basic product that they did in 1984, completely forgetting that it is 2014. Content tastes vary by market, but editors need to keep their ear to the ground to find out what works locally.
Tell a story, but do it efficiently. Too many times you still see newspapers devoting 40" of content for stories that were told in 15". Tell the story in a timely manner too. There are still newspapers that provide indepth copy of sporting events that are 36 hours old (or older) when they finally reach the end user. That NASCAR race or baseball game might not warrant game coverage if it doesn't make that next day's paper.
More details on Harrison Jacob's story on the newspaper's horrible 10 year run can be found at http://www.businessinsider.com/brookings-essay-on-decline-of-newspapers-2014-10
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