By Jordan Chong
Fairfax Media Ltd says ending the slide in circulation at its mastheads is a big focus for the current financial year.
The diversified media group, like other publishers worldwide, has suffered from weak circulation numbers in recent times as consumers drift away from newsprint and towards online platforms, such as e-readers and mobiles.
But Fairfax Media chief executive Brian McCarthy says the company will be committing further resources to its newspapers in 2010/11 and is looking to boost sales.
"We will be certainly be defending our position in print and in fact seeking to have growth in print," Mr McCarthy said on Friday.
"Paid circulation in print is probably going to be a big focus for us and a bigger focus than it has been in the past."
Mr McCarthy said Fairfax was looking to increase resources, as well as considering distribution models, content and formats of its newspapers.
Fairfax Media publishes The Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers, as well as The Australian Financial Review and a host of regional mastheads after its merger with Rural Press Ltd.
The latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures showed the company's metropolitan and national newspapers recorded a 2.4 per cent fall in circulation in the three months to June 30, compared to the prior corresponding period.
Mr McCarthy said the declines had been "reasonably well managed".
While online was Fairfax's "biggest growth engine", he expected newspapers to be around "for a long time".
"I can't see print disappearing, certainly not in my lifetime," Mr McCarthy said.
Asked to comment on a recent research report from Macquarie Group suggesting Fairfax would be financially better off if its flagship mastheads in Sydney and Melbourne switched to an online-only model, Mr McCarthy said on "simple mathematics it would not be a good decision".
"We think it is way too early to be making calls like that," he said.
"It might be a proposition in 20 or 30 years, but certainly not today."
The Australian Financial Review (AFR) was particularly hard hit during the global financial crisis and circulation for the Monday-Friday edition fell 5.9 per cent in the three months to June 30.
Mr McCarthy said the AFR's loss of sales was similar to what happened during the previous economic downturn in 1991.
Moreover, he said the AFR was doing a "much better job" than many offshore peers in the business sector.
"We are seeing the AFR improve. The decline year-on-year is not as great. It is coming down," Mr McCarthy said.
"We think we are on track as that business investor sector comes back."