Traditional media has just five years of growth left

That’s a headline to send newspaper proprietors away with a skip in their step.

The death of traditional media has been exaggerated, according to global leader for entertainment and media practice at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, during his pitch at the World Association of Newspapers conference in Hong Kong.

Digital advertising is destined to continue its upward trend but will still only globally represent 10% of total advertising for newspapers by 2012.

He forecast that global print advertising will grow 1.8 percent to $123.3 billion in 2012, while global digital advertising will grow 19.3 percent to $13.4 billion. Am I missing something but this sounds dire for print media.

So why are we not falling headlong into a digital morass of media.

"One of the things we need to get into context here is that traditional media isn't dead yet and won't be for the next five years. It's very important to think why. The over-50s are helping to sustain traditional media, and also in many of the emerging markets there is still plenty of room for traditional media.”

So there you go. Oldies like things they can pick-up and read (paper media) and will keep buying it. I wonder if that message has got through to paper media owners who seem intent on trying to re-position their products to a younger audience. Maybe this is not such a smart move.

Perhaps they should bite the bullet and see traditional media as a cash cow and try and milk it for as long as they can. Dick Stroud