2021年经济学人 飞涨的新闻纸价让报社日子变得更加艰难（在线收听）

Business

商业

Newspapers -- Paper chase

报纸——追纸

Soaring newsprint costs make life even harder

飞涨的新闻纸价让日子变得更加艰难

“It’s like tasering an elderly person who’s already on a pacemaker,” says a British newspaper boss of the newsprint market, where prices have risen by over 50% in a matter of months.

“这就像电击一个已经戴着起搏器的老人，”新闻纸市场的一位英国报业老板说，新闻纸的价格在几个月内已上涨了50%以上。

The cost of paper that feeds into presses around the world is rising to record highs, pushing up expenses for newspapers from Mumbai to Sydney.

世界各地印刷厂喂给印刷机的纸张的成本正升至创纪录的高点，报纸价格也随之上升，从孟买到悉尼。

When times were good, before ads shifted online, newspapers had a supportive partnership with paper mills.

在广告转移到线上之前，经济状况良好的时候，报纸商与造纸厂有着相互支持的合作关系。

As ads departed and circulations fell, relations became more transactional.

随着广告减少、发行量下降，双方的关系变得更具交易性。

They are now at the shouting stage.

如今，他们相互冲对方叫嚷着。

Paper mills had the worst of it for years as newspapers reduced pagination, went wholly digital or shut for good.

这些年来，报纸页数减少、完全转向数字化或着干脆倒闭，造纸厂遭受了最严重的打击。

The papers were able to hammer down the cost of newsprint from firms fighting for business as demand declined.

当需求下降时，报纸商能够跟那些争夺业务的公司压低新闻纸的成本。

Price-taking paper mills suffered in silence.

接受出价的造纸厂默默承受着损失。

Many hesitated to shut massive machines costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

许多人对关闭这些耗资数亿美元的巨型机器犹豫不决。

That hesitance has disappeared; mills are taking out newsprint capacity and diversifying.

犹豫不再；造纸厂正在削减新闻纸产能，实现多元化。

Norske Skog, a Norwegian pulp and paper firm, said in June it would close its 66-year-old Tasman Mill in New Zealand, for example.

例如，挪威纸浆和造纸公司Norske Skog在6月份表示，将关闭其在新西兰拥有66年历史的塔斯曼造纸厂。

Many mills are converting machines to make packaging for e-commerce.

许多工厂正在改造机器，为电子商务生产包装。

UPM, a Finnish firm, announced this year the sale of its Shotton newsprint mill in Wales to a Turkish maker of containerboard and packaging.

芬兰公司UPM今年宣布将其位于威尔士的Shotton新闻纸厂出售给一家土耳其纸板和包装制造商。

For JCS Volga, a Russian mill, newsprint used to account for 70% of production; now half of what it makes is packaging.

对于俄罗斯的JCS Volga工厂来说，新闻纸过去占其产量的70%；现在它生产的一半产品是包装。

The mills “moved from being price-takers to being capable co-participants in a declining market,” says Tim Woods of IndustryEdge, a research firm for Australia and New Zealand’s forestry and paper industries.

澳大利亚和新西兰林业和造纸业研究公司IndustryEdge的蒂姆·伍兹表示，这些造纸厂“在不断下滑的市场中，从价格接受者转变成为了有能力的合作参与者”。

The pandemic, with people working from home, meant even fewer newspaper purchases, which depressed demand for newsprint again and increased the pain for paper suppliers.

疫情下人们在家工作，意味着报纸购买量降低，这再次压低了对新闻纸的需求，增加了纸张供应商的痛苦。

In the past 24 months European mills have responded by shutting almost a fifth of their newsprint capacity, says a buyer for a large British newspaper group.

英国一家大型报业集团的一位买家表示，在过去的24个月里，欧洲报业工厂作出反应削减了近五分之一的新闻纸产能。

Then economies reopened.

随后，经济重新开放。

Newsprint demand shot up.

新闻纸需求激增。

That, combined with much reduced capacity and coupled with soaring energy prices, has resulted in a price shock.

再加上产能大幅下降，另外还有能源价格飙升，这些导致了价格剧烈震动。

Particularly controversial are energy surcharges that some paper suppliers are seeking to pass on.

尤其具有争议的是一些纸张供应商试图转嫁出去的能源附加费。

Newspaper firms reckon this amounts to breaking contracts.

报业公司认为这相当于违约。

European newspapers will have to pay newsprint prices that are 50-70% higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the year before.

2022年第一季度，欧洲报纸将不得不支付比去年同期高出50%-70%的新闻纸价格。

As for their counterparts in Asia and Oceania, they are facing prices around 25% to 45% above their usual level.

至于亚洲和大洋洲的同行，他们面临的价格比正常水平高出约25%至45%。

Kenya’s Nation Media Group is paying around $840 per tonne, compared with $600 at most in the past, says Dorine Ogolo, a procurement manager at the firm.

肯尼亚国家传媒集团的采购经理多琳·奥戈罗表示，该公司目前支付的价格约为每吨840美元，而过去每吨最多600美元。

North American prices went up earlier, and more gradually; contracts are fixed monthly rather than half-yearly.

北美的价格上涨得更早，也更缓慢；合约是按月签的，而不是以半年为周期。

But there, too, newsprint prices are 20-30% higher in 2021 than in 2020.

但在那里，2021年的新闻纸价格也比2020年高出20%-30%。

Germany’s print and media industry association has warned that mills are going to force newspapers to dump paper editions, hurting each other in the process.

德国印刷和媒体行业协会警告称，纸厂将迫使报纸商放弃纸质版本，这样会给彼此都造成伤害。

“It’s about the famous branch that both of them are sitting on,” it said recently.

该协会最近说：“双方现在处于同一条船上。”

But mills can sell packaging instead.

但纸厂可以转而销售包装。

“We’re not going to save the publishing industry by being unprofitable ourselves,” says a mill executive in North America.

“如果我们自己不盈利，我们就无法拯救出版业，”北美一家纸厂的高管说。

For some publishers, price rises will wipe out profits.

对于一些出版商来说，价格上涨将抹去利润。

They will need to do further restructuring involving axing titles and layoffs.

他们将需要进行进一步的重组，包括减少职位和裁员。

Iwan Le Moine of EMGE, a British paper-industry consultancy, expects a big increase in 2022 of the number of papers that shut compared with a typical year.

英国造纸业咨询公司EMGE的伊万·勒梅因预计，与正常年份相比，2022年关闭的纸厂数量将大幅增加。

That will lower demand and nudge the market back towards equilibrium.

这将降低需求，并推动市场回归平衡。

But newspapers will have more hard conversations about paper, full stop, says Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis, a research firm.

但研究公司Enders Analysis的道格拉斯·麦凯布表示，报纸将会有更多关于纸张的艰难交流。

More digital adrenaline is one possible riposte to the paper mills’ tasers.

更多的数字肾上腺素可能是对造纸厂电击的一种反击。