Expert gives Qatar newspapers 12 years Wednesday, 23 November 2011 02:36

By CHRIS V PANGANIBAN

DOHA: Newspapers in Qatar can still survive up to 12 more years, but it won’t  be that long in the more advanced countries like the US with only five more years and UK and Australia with nine to 10 more years to go as a result of the fast developing Internet.

Dr Jeffrey Cole (pictured), Director of the Center for Digital Future and expert on the use of Internet and broadband technology, made this fearless forecast in his talk on “Surveying the Digital Future: What Everyone Needs To Know About the Internet” at the W Hotel which is sponsored by Northwestern University in Qatar.

Cole now even sees the extinction of the printed news material faster than what he even thought  when he told newspaper experts in the US about it 11 years ago that it could still stay up to 30 more years.

“I have told editors before in a big gathering that every time a newspaper reader dies, a new reader will not be replaced,” Cole said.

However Cole said some newspapers like the popular New York Times would survive and become global news brands because, even among teens who did not read newspapers will still patronise online news.

And as more people would crave for the digital news forms, Cole sees the iPad would prevail as a very popular tablet device and he said the advent of such gadget leads to the critical development for newspapers.

“If newspapers would go from paper to online through the tablet, they would win. And they could win more readers if they turn their news materials into interactive,” Cole said.

Newspaper owners, however, need not to worry because consumers would ultimately pay for content of the online version of newspapers and magazines.

“We’re seeing iPads, we think, ultimately replacing the second screen (of the PC),” Dr Cole said. “Newspapers and magazines were never going to prosper on the PC because they’re lean-back (media). “I think (the iPad) is the most exciting development in the last 100 years for newspapers,” he said. “It becomes a really viable medium.”

While newspaper could be already threatened by the digital age, Cole still found TV to survive. “TV is an exception because it’s our constant companion.”

He said that TV can survive because of the new technology when the contents can be accessed to the mobile devices, more and more people would prefer to watch news updates even in small screens.

“TV is moving out of the home nowadays,” he said as he noted there are even more people exposed to the TV in present times.

The Peninsula

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