This is the situation newspaper publishers have found themselves in with their digital platforms. For years, digital newspapers have been paid for by the print product and, as long as that print product was making money, the website could pretend it was autonomous and distinct from its inky brethren. But now readers are moving in swathes to the online product, leaving the print product in trouble and the digital platform without a benefactor. This is giving publishers a dilemma: either they have to arrest the falling print circulations by investing in print, or they have to work out how to make online pay for itself. The latter has proven tricky.  

"None of the news organisations have been able to make the internet really profitable," reveals Chris Blackhurst, editor of The Independent.

So, for many publishers, reviving print newspapers’ fortunes seems to be the plan to sustain both platforms, but preventing further decline in the printed product looks just as difficult as making online pay. ABC data shows that in July this year, not one of the dailies managed to grow its readership compared to the same month last year. Britain’s biggest selling daily, The Sun, lost around 200,000 readers, while The Guardian sales dropped 10.27% and the Daily Star sales dropped a massive 16.18%. This followed negative growth figures across the board for each of the months previous since Christmas 2010, with only the Daily Mail managing a slight increase in two of the six months.

And if the News of the World had not closed, the situation for the Sunday papers would have been just as bad. In each month of this year up to June, circulation figures were down across the board, but the closure of News of the World  meant that, in July, circulations were generally up as the former’s readership was shared out among its rivals.

Despite the dire figures – or perhaps because of them – publishers have seemed willing to splash the cash on print, but they are not exactly clear as to how they should be spending the money.   

"Everyone is fighting it out for a larger share of a declining market, as publishers haven’t worked out how to get readership to increase," says John Ellis, Manroland GB’s director of web sales. "We have been trying to help them find a solution."

Paper tricks
Last year, Manroland assisted The Daily Telegraph in printing on a translucent substrate for an innovative cover wrap. Ellis explains that the company is currently running tests with other national publishers on a number of print applications such as this, including new innovative cover wraps, special folds and new substrates.

"These developments are able to be produced at full press speed," he explains. "We have recently been running tests with super panoramic adverts – which are four times larger than a broadsheet page. They have been very successful in Australia and other places and we are now talking to people in the UK about it. Scented inks are something a couple of people have tried and there have been several editions using transparent substrates."

In India, he reveals that Manroland has worked with The Times of India to put Post-it note-style tip-ons onto the newspapers; on installing small loudspeaker units, as seen on greetings cards, that play when you open the newspaper; and on using digital technology to print variable data.

He explains that all these applications are viable for the UK market, but that the costs can be high. That said, he adds that the machine used to print a super panoramic advert for an Australian newspaper was paid for with the advertising revenue from that first edition, leaving subsequent editions overhead-free in terms of capital expenditure.

KBA has been just as busy, with UK managing director Christian Knapp explaining that the flexibility of substrates is a key area worldwide, enabling publishers to print on paper that enhances photos and artwork, something that will appeal to both the editorial department and advertisers alike. It has also been rolling out the Zip’n’Buy application, where a perforator is added to the press so advertisers can run coupons that can be easily torn from the page. Unlike Ellis, however, Knapp feels that publishers in the UK are not as willing to engage with these innovations as elsewhere in the world.

"It is partly because they are not as flexible as their counterparts around the world and as to why that is you’d have to ask them," says Knapp. "By flexible I mean, say, putting different materials through. For example, why does a national newspaper not want to run a higher grade reel of paper as one of their options?"

The answer may be that the money is being spent online instead, though considering the number of examples of UK publishers investing in print other then The Telegraph coverwrap mentioned earlier, Knapp’s comment seems harsh – the Financial Times has also experimented with translucent substrates, The Metro has run a number of coverwrap options, including a 3D example and one with a scratch-off panel, and The Guardian has experimented with special folding options.

"We have used innovative techniques on both advertising and editorial content of the newspaper and as time goes on we will continue to develop our products and invest further if the return on investment makes a sensible business case," explains Brett Lawrence, general manager of national newspaper operations at Guardian News & Media.

Novelty value
The worry in the long term concerning these particular print investments is that they have so far been geared to giving advertisers more bang for their buck, not necessarily at improving the reader experience of the printed newspaper. They are also applications that even Manroland’s Ellis admits will lose impact if they are "overdone". Financial Times director for advertisement operations Peter Slaughter says that this is why these added-value apps are unlikely ever to become a permanent part of newspapers.

"In the past, we have experimented with different print types, including coverwraps and printing on translucent paper," he explains. "But while these techniques can sometimes provide a wow factor, I don’t think they will become mainstream."

Roy Greenslade, media commentator for The Guardian and former editor of the Daily Mirror, goes even further. "You have to ask yourself whether these things will have a long-term significance or whether they are just short-term fixes," he says. "What we are seeing is the decline of the core product and no amount of add-ons can solve that issue. They are merely dressing, they do not have a larger significance than that."

As Greenslade says, the use of these applications in the battle to save the printed newspaper is limited. They are a good way of generating more income from advertisers while the circulation numbers are high enough to make those advertisers choose print in the first place, but they are doing little to improve the reader experience and so are unlikely to arrest falling circulations, and if numbers dip below a certain level, no matter how many special features, advertisers will go elsewhere.

This is perhaps why some feel that the real investment from publishers, if they are going to take the print route, should be in the editorial make up of the printed newspaper. As Manfred Werfel, deputy chief executive at the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers explains, the things people want from a print newspaper are changing.   

"I am quite sure printed newspapers will look different in 10 years’ time," he says. "By then we’ll know better the major trends of the reinvention of the newspaper. Maybe we will see a kind of daily magazine of high editorial background information quality, printed on improved newsprint or on SC paper in hybrid presses."

There have already been moves towards this more magazine-like, analysis-based printed product. The Evening Standard relaunched as a free newspaper with analysis running alongside news stories to give added-value editorial. Also, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said recently that a redesigned Guardian will be "Newsnight not News at Ten" – i.e. review and analysis features not just breaking news.

The national newspaper that has gone the furthest in investing in the editorial side, however, is The Independent. In October last year, it launched i, the first new UK national newspaper since The Independent itself first appeared on the newsstands in 1986.

"It was launched to see if there was a new market out there that was not reading a printed newspaper currently, but could be persuaded to do so if offered a concise quality publication," says Blackhurst. "Obviously, a major concern was that instead of finding new readers we would just move existing readers from The Independent to i. I have to admit even I thought it was a risk, but happily myself and other critics have been proved wrong. It has found a whole new audience."

Indeed, in July it outsold The Independent, with a circulation of 183,677 compared to its sister publication’s 182,881, which has been relatively static since i launched. That sort of performance should be turning publishers heads to the fact that investing editorially in print can pay dividends. In tandem with the print applications discussed earlier, printed newspapers of this ilk suddenly look to have a bright future.

No future?
However, Greenslade doesn’t believe there is room for more than one i-type publication and says that The Independent’s choice to pursue print is more to do with the performance of their website than a confidence in the print format.

"If you look at the Independent’s online figures, which are quite a bit lower than everyone else, that is partly the reason for their decision and it is an entertaining move," he says. "But the long-term future is going to be digital. I don’t think print innovations will stop that."

"I’d dispute that with Roy," counters Blackhurst. "We have a passion for the printed product and we think it will always survive. We are also investing in online, however, redesigning the website as we speak. We are taking the measured response of investing in both mediums."

Other publishers seem to agree, putting investment into both the printed and the online product. The Times has redesigned both its website and its print format, while The Guardian has also adopted a dual approach, experimenting with both the physical and editorial sides of the print product, despite pledging to pursue a "digital-first" policy that Rusbridger has described as a "greater focus of attention, imagination and resource on the various forms that digital future is likely to take".

In regional and local newspapers, the dual approach seems to be at work too – and in the tightest of economic circumstances. Lynne Anderson, Newspaper Society communications director, says that the two formats are prospering as complementary media. She reveals that 33m people still read a local newspaper in print every week, alongside 42m unique users visiting local newspaper websites every month. She explains that new print products are being launched at the same time as websites are being improved and updated.

As gleefully harmonious as this sounds, the critics will argue it’s not sustainable in the long term – at some point, they say, publishers are likely to have to make a choice to fund one platform properly, rather than underfunding both, such is the economic dire straits of newspaper publishing.

Greenslade believes the choice is simple. He says the scramble to save the printed newspaper is welcome – "I think it’s great that they are attempting to save the print format" – but ultimately futile.

"It makes me think of steam trains and how people managed to keep them going, and still going now," he says. "There are various places across Britain where there are steam train branch lines and I think newspapers will become like that, something of novelty value."

Whether Greenslade is ultimately proved correct we shall have to wait and see but what is clear now is that UK publishers are more than willing to invest in printed products – be that in terms of their physicality, their content, or through new launches. Though these attempts may not be paying dividends across the board yet in terms of increasing circulations or even arresting the falls, the success of i gives promise and it has to be remembered that efforts to fully monetise online are proving similarly inconclusive.