THE Newspaper and Magazine Dealers Association of the Philippines (MDAP) says newspaper readership is declining steadily.
Lawyer Raymund J.A. Mercado, MDAP president for Visayas, echoed the consensus of association members nationwide after attending the MDAP summit at the Development Academy of the Philippines on June 15 and 16.
"The decline could be attributed to the onset of news on the net and the fact that working people are becoming too busy with earning a living that they find reading the news of least importance and would rather just watch television and get pot shots of the latest news," Mercado said.
He said it was discouraging to note that less and less young people in school are interested in reading newspapers while traditional readers were slowly dying.
"Of course the major factor is, the cost of newspapers have gone up. Taken altogether with economic hard times, would-be buyers of newspapers would rather spend their money for food," the MDAP official said.
Mercado said that figures presented during the summit showed that as far as newspaper readership was concerned, the percentage of readership was declining by not less than 10 percent every year.
"If this problem is not arrested we will see newspapers out of the street in 10 years," he quoted other presidents of all major organizations of newspaper and magazines dealers of the Philippines from Aparri to Jolo.
The newspaper and magazines dealers were represented by their respective presidents Danny Jose for Metro Manila; Owen Fuentes for Luzon; Mercado for Visayas; and Pete Marquez for Mindanao.
He said the summit tried to identify the reasons and to find solutions to the declining demand for newspapers and magazines.
As far as magazine sales are concerned, the newspaper and magazine dealers agreed that pocketbooks and glossy magazine have taken over the traditional readership for comics and newsprint magazines.
Glossy magazines, on the other hand, are enjoying a significant increase in sales, he said.
Mercado said publishers and newspapers and magazines dealers agreed to work together to increase readership, to encourage young people to read once more, and to sustain the present reading population to survive.
Moreover, he said, they agreed that all past issues of newspapers and magazine would be recycled in the market but directed to public schools and municipalities that have reading centers to encourage awareness and interest in the print media.
