BEYOND THE PAGE

In the 1941, Orson Welles film Citizen Kane about the rise and fall of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, Kane flippantly remarks to his angered former guardian: “I don’t know how to run a newspaper, Mr. Thatcher; I just try everything I can think of.”

Once, in the not-too-distant past, running a paper with a successful advertising model was a straightforward process that had been ticking along quite nicely for well over a century. A large number of people bought and read papers and therefore, a large number of businesses would advertise in them. And pay quite handsomely to do so.

Then, of course, digital disruption came along and publishers were turned on their heads, having to rethink how to keep newspapers alive while evolving to an ever-advancing digital world.

And, like Kane, they’ve been trying everything they can think of. There have been attempted mergers, talk of paywalls, new and unexpected business ventures and competing publishers have banded