Who'll be the future Fleet Street survivors?

Global sales are growing. Some 11.5 million national dailies are still being sold in Britain. After initial downturns following the rise of a new medium, such as television, print has endured through innovation.

History will surely repeat itself once online enthusiasm dies down.

That kind of argument is founded on all sorts of misconceptions, not least the impossibility of funding papers once advertisers vanish. But, like many veteran print journalists, I also find it hard to conceive of the complete eradication of newspapers.

Nor, indeed, do I think it will happen.

Long-term circulation trends along with an analysis of readership demographics, suggest that part of the press may well survive while another goes to the wall.

What is clear is that we will witness the demise of the red-tops, along with the weakest middle-market title, the Daily Express. These papers are fast losing readers and advertisers (and have already lost kudos). Their traditional audience is getting older and they are failing to replace it with the emerging generation, despite skewing celebrity-infected editorial content towards the young.

Together, The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and Daily Express sold an average of 6.2 million copies in June compared to 7.36 million in the same month five years ago. That's a 15.8 per cent fall in buyers. If we project that trend five years forward at a similar level of decline, it indicates a likely total of 5.2 million sales. In fact, the situation will probably have grown more acute by then, and at least one title will have closed.

Now consider the same comparison for five other morning titles The Daily Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Independent and Daily Mail. Last month they sold an average 4.43 million compared to 4.74 million five years before, a loss of 6.6 per cent.

No one can deny the overall decline.

But there is a marked difference between the performance of the downmarket titles, what I'll call The Doomed, and the combined segment of the upmarket "qualities", plus the successful middle-market title, which I call The Survivors.

These distinct sales stories are no accident. What is beginning to emerge is a clear division of newspaper readership, based on education, affluence and culture. While the so-called "mass market" deserts papers, the better-educated and more affluent niche audiences will go on buying papers for far longer. Though many will be happy enough to consume breaking news on computers, they will continue to seek out analysis, comment and cultural commentaries on newsprint, despite its availability on websites.

British newspaper habits appear to be in the process of reverting to the 18th and 19th centuries, to the dominance of The Times and the Telegraph, The Meldrews when the largest-selling papers were read by the elite.

The elite has, of course, broadened considerably to include a substantial middle class. It is this group of mixedmedia consumers that offers The Survivors their best hope.

What about advertising? How can The Survivors obtain the necessary revenue if advertisers switch online? Well, I may be indulging in faith here, but I am certain that media buyers will continue to take space in papers that deliver audiences of affluent consumers, even if the volumes are relatively small.

But there is a caveat. Not all of The Survivors are guaranteed to survive.

The Independent, for instance, may be as doomed as The Doomed because its audience will dwindle too quickly to ensure an income.

One advantage for papers that do last is that well-heeled audiences will be able to pay higher cover prices.

There are already instances of relatively expensive elite publications performing well, not least The Economist, with more than 160,000 weekly sales in Britain at £3.60 an issue. The Financial Times, priced at £1.30 on weekdays, manages a daily UK sale of more than 135,000.

The next question, of course, is about the implications for our society when The Doomed die off. Will we see a deeper division between the newspaper-reading elite and those who don't bother at all with newsprint? I doubt that the split will be much different from today. It is hard to imagine that former Daily Express readers will miss much when their paper of choice is unable to publish another splash about Princess Diana.

In truth, we already live in a divided society, where too few people show an interest in news and current affairs.

Is that the fault of their papers or themselves? I rather think, given the choice available, it is the people who must take the blame.