Two thirds of publishers believe their business will fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, with most saying staff will either work from home or have the option to do so.

The finding is one of a number from WAN-Ifra’s World Press Trends Outlook report. It says “one of the many silver linings” of the pandemic has been their ability to adapt quickly to the changing environment. “For many, this meant speeding up their digital transformation efforts,” it says, 44 per cent of publishers saying that accelerating their digital transformation strategy was “the most important change” to make.

Much of the report is based on a survey sent to publishers in the second half of last year.

While “digital transformation” is an overarching strategy for most companies, the specifics are increasingly audiences-first, reader revenue, data and product dev. “It is no coincidence that the three next most important changes for 2021 mirror those of top investment plans: accelerating reader revenue plans, the same for data analytics, and more tech investment.

“News executives don’t consider the short-term impact of the pandemic as the biggest risk to their organisation’s future success. Instead, respondents say their organisation’s greatest threats are the ongoing decline of news publishers’ share of the advertising market, 30.6 per cent, (in which the pandemic plays a key role naturally) and their organisation’s inability to diversity revenues (21 per cent).

Some 43 per cent of respondents said their revenues declined by more than 20 per cent “in the last 12 months”; another seven per cent said theirs declined by more than ten per cent.

On average, overall revenue was down by 11 per cent, publishers reported. However, 17 per cent of publishers reported an increase in revenues last year, according to the Outlook survey, with 11 per cent actually saying revenues were up more than 20 per cent.

“Digital circulation revenue has been a positive development for many news organisations as publishers report a 26.9 per cent year-on-year increase in 2020,” it says. “While that figure is impressive, it’s worth noting that globally the industry is still predominantly dependent on advertising and print revenue: Digital circulation revenue makes up just 6.1 per cent of publishers overall revenue (core revenue streams).”

The survey showed 65 per cent of publishers believe their business will fully recover from the pandemic, while 35 per cent don’t. Nearly 60 per cent of publishers said their staff will either work from home or have the option to work from home going forward. Only five per cent of respondents expect to move everyone back to the office and 16 per cent believe they’ll use less real estate going forward.

For the first time, the survey asked publishers to share their general cost allocation across the business, and editorial was the single largest expense, accounting for just over a third of all costs (33.5 per cent). Print production costs make up just 21.4 per cent.

WAN-Ifra members can download the report free, or it is available for purchase via customerservice@wan-ifra.org. A World Press Trends database features historical data dating from 2005-2017.