Already weakened, newspapers now face another threat: ad blocking. A month ago, when Apple introduced its latest iPhone and iPad operating system iOS9, there was a nasty surprise for online publishers. Those browsing the internet on their mobile phones can now download apps that block ads. Welcome to a commercial-free internet.
Newspapers make their content available online in two ways: by asking us to pay for some or all of it, as this newspaper and The Irish Times do; or by putting everything up free, assembling a large online audience, and selling those eyeballs to advertisers — the Irish Independent model. If readers of “free” content — created at enormous expense — can avoid seeing an ad on these newspapers’ websites, advertisers will depart, and the economic model fails. “Forget the arrival of BuzzFeed,” one newspaper executive told The Times, “this is potentially the biggest threat to our industry.”
Ad blocking is not a new phenomenon, but it’s a growing one. Usage in Europe increased by 35% in the last year, and by 41% globally. According to a recent report by PageFair and Adobe, 17.7% of Irish internet users were deploying ad-blocking software in the second quarter of 2015.
Apple will accelerate the trend by making ad blocking much easier for mobile phone users. While about a third of all web browsing is done on phones, only about 1% of ad blocking is. That’s going to change. “This has the potential to challenge the viability of the web as a platform for the distribution of free ad-supported content,” warns the PageFair/Adobe report.
It’s no surprise internet users want to avoid ads, which have steadily become more annoying and invasive, while increasing page loading times. It’s like a salesman who refuses to take his foot out of your doorway while demanding at the top of his voice that you buy some widget you don’t need — who would not pay to be rid of this nuisance?
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The triangular relationship between newspapers, advertisers and readers is not working particularly well either. Advertisers are not getting as much engagement as they would like, readers are irritated, and newspapers are ever more desperately adding advertisement features and more intrusive auto-play ads to their sites.
So how will they respond to this latest threat? Trinity Mirror group is reportedly thinking about stopping those using ad blockers from reading articles on its websites. Fine, but won’t those determined to avoid ads simply get their free news elsewhere? Paywalls may regain their popularity, or newspapers may abandon the open web and shift their material to apps and other protected areas, where they can insist readers pay for journalism, such as by joining membership schemes.
Ultimately, they may have to link up with giant websites that need quality news content — the likes of Facebook and Apple. They tend to have large, loyal and youthful audiences — the sort advertisers like.