Question: when was the last time you looked at a printed Yellow Pages directory?

I ask because Monday's Telegraph contained a thought-provoking piece on Yell, which quoted chief executive John Condron as saying he saw a "bright future" for the group's print business. Apparently Yell claims 50m UK users a month still avail themselves of the printed directory.

Who are these people? No-one at Francis Towers is among this number, I can't remember the last time I opened a Yellow Pages, and the book doesn't even merit shelf space at home any more. I don't think I'm alone, either. When the new edition is delivered in my locale many of my neighbours don't even take them inside, so they end up going directly to the recycling bin, or just the bin. It's a good job that Yell has adapted its yellow background colour so that directories are now suitable for recycling into newsprint at Aylesford's plant.

The only people I know who use Yellow Pages are my aged parents, who don't have a computer. Perhaps the directory is more well-thumbed in a small business environment, or in hotels? Still, surely the migration of search activity to online channels is an unstoppable force.

Delving into Yell's latest accounts I see that UK print revenues fell 11% to £504.4m in the year to the end of March 2009 (an acceleration on 2007-2008's drop of 6%), and the group had 10% fewer customers for its printed directories, though it says that this is "primarily as a result of planned lower new customer acquisition", which in itself is an interesting sales strategy.

Perhaps they're focusing on customer who can/will actually pay, as I see that group bad debt ballooned from £97m to £134.6m. Ouch. And although paper costs were effectively static year-on-year printing and binding costs jumped by 9% to £95.3m. Also intriguing, I wonder why?

As per previous posts on a related topic, I'm a great fan of the whole "flick-to-click" thing whereby smaller, more frequent editions of printed catalogues drive website sales. Perhaps a similar approach could work in directories too, but with a single directory edition a year I don't see this harmonious print/web combination working for Yell unless they make some fundamental changes to their strategy. It pains me to be so negative about a printed product, but I really do think this yellow one's future must be in peril.