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Study: Publishing industry's long-term growth limited because people increasingly don't read |
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Written by asap
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Wednesday, 24 May 2006 |
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Despite a strong year in 2005, with increases in both revenues and the number of books sold, the publishing industry’s projections for long-term growth remain limited, according to a study released Friday.
FEWER READERS
In actual dollars, net revenue increased 5.9 percent to just under $34.6 billion. But the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit trade association, said Friday that it expects a slow market for the rest of the decade, citing an emerging generation that doesn’t read as much as the previous one.
“The average amount of time and money spend by the general population on books has been declining and we don’t see anything that’s going to change that,” said Bob Wharton, also a senior researcher at the Institute for Public Research, based in Bergenfield, N.J.
“Given that the older population tends to be heavy readers, as that population ages further, we’re probably going to see a further decline overall in how much time is spent on books as opposed to other media.”
MORE BOOKS BEING SOLD
Over the past few years, the number of books published has soared even as sales fell. That changed in 2005. A recent report by statisticians R.R. Bowker projected that the number of books released actually dropped last year, to 172,000.
The study group said the number of books sold in the United States increased by 3.8 percent, to 3.1 billion. | Only registered users can write comments.
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