Oh that’s nice. I just received the first pre-publication copy of my new book and took it home to show my wife. She says it’s glib. If that means fluent and easy that’s fine, but I suspects she means deceptive. She has a problem with the fact that the book doesn’t list sources for any of the ‘facts’. This is because adding 200-300+ sources would double the size of the book, so I’ve put them on a website instead. This seems to bother some people but I think hyperlinks are far better than static sources. We’ll see who’s right in the future.

Anyway, here’s the latest installment…with no sources.

Fifty years ago 80% of Americans read a daily newspaper. Today the figure is close to 50% – and failing. Globally it’s much the same story. Between 1995-2003, worldwide newspaper circulation fell by 5%. In 1892 London had fourteen evening papers. Now it has just one (or two depending on your definition of a newspaper). Also in the UK, a staggering 19% of all the newspapers delivered to retailers in the first quarter of 2006 came back as returns and three national newspaper titles had return (non sale) rates approaching 50%. If these trends continue the last physical copy of a newspaper will probably roll off a press sometime in the year 2040. Only they won’t.