I spent a fascinating couple of days down in that London at an gathering of those interested in the future of local news — organised by Sion Simon (Minister for Creative Industries) at the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, who are hoping to have got some useful ideas for future legislation (the Digital Economy Bill)  It was brilliant to have a range of people from different backgrounds and interest groups to talk to and learn from — too many events are focused around one industry or interest group and end up being (to be clichéd) an echo chamber — with it being particularly good to hear about how things are shaping up in the States. Hannah over at Podnosh gives a good overview of the whats and the whos.

But first the “bad news”, see the decline in regional newspaper circulation from 1993 (as shown in a very impressive set of slides from Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis)

What strikes me is that, while the decline starts to happen consistently with widespread internet adoption, there are huge drops in years before that, including 1993; before the world wide web. Something was up with what the regional press was offering long before people started getting news online —  and local news online provision lagged behind that of national (certainly in Birmingham where it’s only been about a year since the local papers started to publish properly on the web).

Read the rest of this entry »