It may have been intentional, but The Canberra Times computer pages that day ran what could only be The Guardian’s April Fools’ Day spoof as a real computer story.
The story told of how newspapers had first got rid of linotype operators and keyboard operators when journalists keyed directly in to computers. Then newspapers got rid of compositors as full-page make-up was done on computers. Now, it was the journalists’ turn, the spoof reported. A program costing a couple of hundred dollars could generate sports stories, complete with cliches, after basic information was fed to it.
The spoof told of how several newspapers in the Mid-West of the US had replaced some sports writers with the program.
There is some irony in the appearance of the story in The Canberra Times, however. Some journalists thought that a joke about a computer program taking over the functions of newspaper journalists was true. The irony is that the joke could come true, even if only partially and at a distant time.
Just before April Fools’ Day, the Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics put out a discussion paper on new communications services; the state of present services; and the market for both. It almost casually assumed that newspapers will be delivered electronically in the future.
The Guardian’s April Fools’ Day victims were the sports writers. Under the bureau’s brave new world, the victims would be the sub-editors who cut and lay out articles on a newspaper page.
In an electronic newspaper, these functions will disappear, though content editors, who will check articles for logicality, grammar and homophones, will stay on the job.
The bureau’s paper suggests the change will be inevitable and perhaps within a generation. It says, “”the younger age groups spend more on electronic forms of recreation such as home computer equipment, television and audio equipment, video cassettes etc, whereas the older age groups spend more on printed material such as newspapers, books and magazines.”
However, it suggests the rate of change is likely to depend on reduced prices and general economic growth rather than consumer willingness to spend more on new communications services and equipment.
It said the proportion of discretionary income spent by households on communications and recreation had remained constant. However, if total income rose, spending on communications would proportionately rise.
Big falls in the price of communications services and gear had meant more households have been able to buy more.
The bureau’s paper covers the whole communications scene, recreational and business. It shows Australians are faster to take up new communications toys than most people elsewhere in the world. Colour television, VCRs, PCs and mobile phones have had a remarkable take-up rate.
In the 12 years to 1993, VCR penetration went from virtually nothing to 80 per cent. Colour TV has gone from 3 per cent in 1975 to 98 per cent in 1993. In seven years the number of mobile phones has gone from nothing to 600,000 (one person in 30). Indeed, as the voice quality and geographic coverage improves, I suspect some households will disconnect the fixed phone in favour of a couple of mobiles.
PCs have gone from 400,000 to 3.5 million in 10 years (23 per cent of them in the home).
CD players and fax machines have similarly boomed.
So we have a widespread boom in electronic information and communications gear. We are seeing a fairly constant proportion of household expenditure being able to buy a wider range of gadgets as time goes on. As the price of the gadgets comes down people buy more of them.
However, there has been no great rush to take up electronic text delivery systems. Videotex has been a flop. It had 27,000 users in 1988 and less than 10,000 last year. Modem penetration (primarily a text tool) is about 2 per cent of households.
I suspect it is because the electronic revolution is more an aural and visual one than a text one. It may also be that people are reading less, but a significant factor is that the text-delivery systems are still very hard to use and they are still expensive.
In the electronic age people’s expectation is for information and communication costs to fall and for increasing ease of use. Text delivery, both on paper and electronically, is either not going that way, or not going that way fast enough to compete.
Newspaper and magazine circulations have been falling, perhaps because cover prices have increased at around the inflation rate, whereas nearly all other information delivery costs have fallen. About a billion daily newspapers were sold in Australia in 1986; last year it was 870 million. Magazines have gone from a high of 227 million in 1989 to 212 million last year.
But circulation revenue has increased and print still dominates the $5 billion advertising market, with 48 per cent of all advertising. About 75 per cent of newspaper revenue is from advertising, so if there is to be electronic delivery of newspapers it will have to somehow include that revenue.
The lesson for the print media in the face of the electronic onslaught, then, is to make it cheap and easy. At present, print faces slow declines in circulation as readers die off or cover prices go higher than information-industry trends. The newspaper (or text) industry must lower cover prices to keep the aging print market; and provide easier techniques to attract the younger electronic-text market.
The advantages of electronic text are plentiful: environmental; users can store and manipulate the text; users can search more easily for text strings and topics, articles do not have to be cut for space, delivery is instantaneous and consumers can respond. The advantages also apply to advertising.
However, as the take up of the other electronic gadgets show, nothing will happen until electronic delivery is made cheaper and easier. Replacing journalists with computers will remain the province of April Fools’ Day jokes.
Footnote: This article will be placed in Compuserve Telecommunications forum with the filename Ozcomms for any Compuserve member wanting an electronic version.