Internet and mobile news could replace newspapers

The interviewees believed that the importance of the Internet as a news medium will grow in the future. Television news broadcasts were expected to shift to web and there will be more on-demand content. Television news will be streamed online real-time at

the same time they are being broadcast on television. Some believed media companies will start their own Finnish online news channels.

”This media convergence that has been talked about for years, will continue. A few years ago tablet computers were kind of a maybe. It would have been difficult to

imagine. The speeding up of the mobile broadband connections mean that tv broadcasts will be done through the Internet. They are not broadcasts anymore but more like on-demand services that are available when people want to watch. Radio audio and video will still be produced in electric mediums but it will be distributed through some other channel.” q13

“At some point someone, whoever it is, will start a news channel on the Internet like CNN and BBC.” q14

The respondents expected news distribution and audiences to start to shift from newspapers to the Internet, tablet computers and other mobile devices in the future.

News was expected to be consumed anywhere, anytime.

“The trend surely is that news is not consumed in a specific place anymore. These current devices already make it possible, and the future devices will surely make it even easier. News broadcasts will be watched on tablet computers and smart phones. We’re already going to that direction.” q15

The speed and extent of this change divided opinions. Most interviewees believed that mobile news will be just another medium among others and they will not replace other mediums. Some interviewees thought that only short and fast news will shift to mobile devices and the media will still save their most important stories for their main

platforms such as the newspaper or evening television news broadcast.

”At least these telegraph style news will shift but I don’t really believe that television image will work well on a small screen except in communicating news headlines and such. Internet is already on portable devices. I don’t believe that it will change too much anymore. Mobile news is already here. Of course you can look at pictures better on a tablet than on a communicator screen.”q16

“I don’t believe that the biggest news items will shift to any mobile devices ever.

Instead, I believe that media will tightly keep on publishing them on their main product which is the morning’s newspaper or the evening or the morning television news broadcast. I don’t believe the biggest news will shift to mobile devices unless this business changes totally.”q17

Some respondents believed that newspapers will still be around for quite a long time, because there are a lot of older people, who are used to reading newspapers. Others believed that mobile devices and the Internet will eat up the newspapers in just a few years.

”I believe there will be a dramatic change, regarding the press, in a very short time. It could be that in a couple of years a significant portion of newspaper content is

consumed through tablet computers, and why not? If you think about the fact that we have printing presses which are damn expensive. It takes years to write them off.

Printing and distribution costs are high. Before that you’ve had to cut down trees and make paper from them with an expensive machine. It is quite brutal. So in this sense, I see the electronic shift in a positive light.” q18

One technologically savvy respondent thought that tablet computers are just a phase in news distribution and the technology will improve a lot. The future devices, that are used to read news, will be something totally different from what we have today.

“I strongly believe that they (news) will shift to mobile devices. This iPad is not the peak of technology. It will develop. I believe there will be smart paper very soon. Then we have something that I can roll up and put into my pocket. I don’t think it will be a machine like this. Yes, it is versatile but it still is a totally shitty machine. I believe it will go like this.” q19

Journalists saw possibilities in the shift of newspaper content to tablet computers.

During this phase, the media companies were considered to have an opportunity to increase the quality of their journalism, if they invest the money saved in printing and distribution costs to newsrooms. Tablet publications were also seen as a possibility for the media companies to create new business logics.

”I see good sides to the fact that there will be lower costs. There will be no more printing and distribution costs. I think it will be a potential opportunity for the media if the companies invest the saved funds in strengthening their newsrooms.” q20

“Somehow I’m afraid that web’s business logic has been messed up so badly a long time ago that it is very difficult to make it work again. It could be that it needs this kind of new platform (tablet computer) and a new type of distribution model along with it, which will really work.”q21

But the benefits of the tablet shift will not come automatically. The new tablet publications can’t be only like a newspaper in a digital form. Journalists and media companies were expected to learn how to use the new technology properly.

“We should learn to use the possibilities offered by the new technology in the best possible way. It is not enough to have moving images and funny stuff. The stories have to become deeper and they have to be packaged in such a way that the new information, the piece of news, is connected to a larger information context more seamlessly than before.”q22