Newspaper sales: it is not apocalypse now

Interesting take on the national newspaper sales today by Jim Bilton in The Guardian which is a bit of an antidote to all the gloom and doom surrounding the future of newspapers. He argues that national newspaper circulations are not in freefall.
Bilton writes: "Commentators have been queuing up to analyse the death throes of the paid-for printed news model. Yet the year-end ABC figures confirm that while this is a tough market, it is not as apocalyptically bad as many are suggesting.
"In December, there was a 5.6% year-on-year drop in newspaper sales - in line with the six-month July to December average of -5.5%. The two years previously had seen an underlying sales volume decline for national newspapers in the region of 3% year-on-year. Take some aggressive cover price increases into account, particularly in the quality market, and until July 2008, the business had been experiencing value growth."
He concludes: "There is still quite a bit of life left in printed news."