US editors 'hesitant' about alternative revenue streams; fear closures in five years, says study

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The majority of America's leading newspaper and broadcast editors are confident their titles will survive another 10 years, but not without "significant new sources of revenue", a new survey suggests.

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in association with the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) , news executives in the US are sceptical about the prospect of state funding and have doubts about alternative revenue streams currently being discussed. Of those who responded, nearly a third said their titles were at risk of surviving just five years or less.

When asked which new revenue ideas for news had their support, only 10 per cent of respondents said they were currently working on paywalls, while 32 per cent are considering them and 11 per cent have abandoned the idea. Only 15 per cent said they felt paywalls would constitute a significant source of revenue for news organisations in three years time. Raising fees from aggregators and taking levies from internet service providers garnered little support.

When asked whether news organisations should have charged for online access to their websites from the beginning, the majority of respondents (32 per cent) said this was just one factor among many behind the industry's current problems; while 66 per cent said failure to develop new revenue streams was a major or the dominant factor.

State or third-party funding was also rejected as a viable alternative by most surveyed: 75 per cent of news executives said they had serious reservations about state-backing; while 78 per cent expressed the same level of concern about financing form interest groups.

Online display advertising, despite its stilted growth, is still the top priority for news executives, but revenue from products outside of news is seen as the next most important focus, the study suggests.

The survey, which questioned 353 news executives from broadcasting and newspaper outlets, found broadcasters to be "strikingly more pessimistic" about the future of journalism; while newspaper newsrooms are "split, with a slight tilt toward optimism".

Six out of 10 surveyed - and more broadcast respondents than those from newspapers - told study that the internet is changing the fundamental values of journalism.

"[T]heir biggest concern is loosening standards of accuracy and verification, much of it tied to the immediacy of the web," it says.

But despite cutbacks and declines in traditional revenue streams, those editors questioned cited "a growing sense of experimentation" and younger, technology-savvy staff as reasons for optimism.

The survey, which also asked news executives what types of content are most important to their title's brand and if they had ethical concerns about new or existing revenue streams, follows the PEJ's State of the News Media study released in March , which said news organisations looking to online advertising and paywalls to generate digital revenues have "a difficult hill to climb" .