Leveson and the iPad - 2011 was truly the year this business changed

No wonder future media historians will come to regard 2011 as a landmark year. Though the end result of the inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson will not become apparent until the spring - quite possibly not until much later - it has already cast a shadow over British journalism.

Whether a judicial inquiry was justified is no longer relevant. It is a given, and its outcome could prove crucial to the exercise of press freedom in the country that can claim to have been its original champion. I believe a system of self-regulation will survive, and should do, but there is no doubt that the inquiry will have an effect on how journalists go about their business.

But will there be any business at all? Underlying the Leveson hearings, and occasionally getting a brief airing in courtroom 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice, there is a very real concern by owners and editors about the future of the press itself.

The digital revolution rolls on, and audiences for print newspapers continue to slide - with notable exceptions, of which more in a moment.

Although overall predictions for advertising growth are still somewhat contradictory, forecasts for newsprint ad revenue remain uniformly gloomy. Digital advertising continues to rise but everyone agrees that it cannot generate the kind of income needed to fund large editorial staffs.

Across Britain, as in the United States, regional newspaper companies have been forced to institute cost savings. To their surprise, they discovered that there was plenty of fat to cut. Some, however, have imperilled quality by cutting to the bone.

Declining quality tends to erode sales still further. Even that isn't the major problem. By cruel coincidence, the timing of transition from print to screen arrived during a painful recession. It has therefore squeezed budgets at publishing companies at the very moment they needed to invest resources in their online platforms.

This is only partly about money. More important is thought. If one is to harness revolution rather than react passively to it or, worse still, attempt to deny its earth-shattering effects, then it is essential to grasp its potential.

It would be unfair to say that newspaper publishers have failed to understand this. Their central problem lies in knowing when to jump.

Throughout the year, while standing on the bridge between print and online, they have faced up to a continual dilemma.

Commerce dictates that they must plough on with print, even as readers drift slowly but surely away. Advertisers may be wary but they continue to like print enough to sustain newspaper publishing in its ink-on-paper form. On the other hand, at the local level, many have deserted in the past 12 months.

That's the reason 31 free weekly newspapers have been closed across Britain in 2011 and part of the reason more than a handful of once-thriving daily titles have been transformed into weeklies. Weakening ad revenue linked to falling circulations have forced publishers' hands.

This newspaper, by contrast, has prospered. But London is a unique market and cannot be replicated elsewhere. In addition, it shows that the free newspaper model works best - and, arguably, only - if it is yoked to quality journalism. Advertisers will go on supporting a paper that is attracting legions of young, educated, affluent commuters.

Elsewhere, outside the metropolis, matters are altogether more problematic. The young - most especially the coming generation of pre-teens - are wedded to computers. They live their social lives through the screen. And many of them have this year taken to the handiest screen invention of recent times: the tablet.

I see people reading iPads and Kindles wherever I go - on trains, in cafés, even in schools. TV documentary presenters use them. During this past 12 months, more and more newspaper publishers have produced apps especially for tablets.

When I interviewed Andrew Rashbass, chief executive of The Economist Group, a couple of weeks ago, he proudly showed me how readers could enjoy his magazine on an iPad. It was just like turning the magazine's pages and it even had an audio function to enable users to listen to articles while driving or cooking or whatever.

Rupert Murdoch was so right when he famously described the iPad as a game changer. It is the future and I will always remember 2011 as the year it changed my game too.

Roy Greenslade is Professor of Journalism, City University London, and writes a blog for the Guardian