(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Cost cutting, redundancies, declining circulations, and advertising losses.
It's not news to hear that newspapers around the world are struggling in the digital age.
But, as Kristina Kukolja reports, in Australia multilingual and non-English papers appear to be defying the trends.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
From behind an unassuming shop front in Melbourne's inner northeast Hong Anh Nguyen runs, and writes for, Tivi Tuan-san -- a Vietnamese language weekly.
It's a family enterprise, launched in the mid 1980s from a back room of the family home.
Three decades on, his TV Times has followed the mass-media migration to digital.
But while mainstream media is busy counting the clicks, Hong Anh Nguyen has seen his print circulation and advertising revenue grow.
"If I don't have online I think I can survive with the print, but if you have online I think it is a bonus, you know?"
He says the newspaper attracts an increasingly diverse readership.
"Before we had old people -- like myself, I came here about 30 years ago. A lot of the seniors read our paper because they want to see what happened in our country. But now we have the young people who are immigrants from Vietnam. A lot of them are students and also family reunion. Young people read our paper as well."
The Greek language newspaper Neos Kosmos -- or, New World -- is also embracing the digital space to attract new audiences.
With three printed weekly issues, and part published in English, the format maintains a steady circulation of about 23,000 and an estimated readership of around 100,000 every week Australia-wide.
Christopher Gogos took over as publisher from his father, who founded the newspaper in 1957 for newly arrived Greek migrants.
He says that core readership hasn't changed.
"Our core audience is traditionally first generation migrants. So, they are an older audience. And they are still loyal to the physical newspaper. That's what their preference is and they haven't taken up digital as quickly as younger readers. So, that's quite different from the mainstream media. We still have very strong circulation numbers. Going forward, we haven't seen a rapid decline like the majors have."
Faye Spiteri is from Cultural Perspectives, a communications agency that, among other things, connects clients with the ethnic media.
She says Australia's migrants and refugees are avid followers of the mainstream media, but their media consumption needs extend somewhat further.
"The role of ethnic media -- and press, in particular -- has always been a connector to community. And it's about that engagement and how communities have settled in Australia -- and we know there's over 162 in Victoria alone, obviously not all have a publication that reflects their community, but there's linkages back. So, those that have been fortunate enough to have professionals and journalists being able to report not only on local issues, but state issues, international issues and home country issues."
That cultural connection, according to media watchers, is the secret of the reader and advertiser loyalty that distinguishes the ethnic press.
And it's an indication that printing presses, such as the one which prints Hong Anh Nguyen's newspaper and Neos Kosmos, won't be falling silent any time soon.
Christopher Gogos says print is still the main source of advertising revenue for his publication.
"We've got a growing digital audience and it's becoming more and more significant, but the expectations of advertising, the revenue that you can get online and how it's been commoditised because of Google and general advertising where people can advertise any way they want and target audiences pretty well, it minimises the revenue you can make from advertising. So, we don't have the scale... We don't have millions of unique users a month, then what we can get in terms of revenue becomes limited. But this is not unlike a lot of small publishers around the world."
Those who follow the industry say hundreds of newspapers, some with an online presence, are today serving communities of non-English speaking backgrounds.
But on a national scale it's still difficult to gauge the market's real value.
Faye Spiteri from Cultural Perspectives says, watch this space.
"Sustainability and viability of ethnic press is really interesting, especially in the very challenging climate that we see in the mainstream press. And I think because press has played a very different role in terms of the need it fulfills in community, the way its future has been challenged is very different to what we've seen in the mainstream."
Hong Ahn Nguyen from Tivi Tuan-san will likely pass those challenges on to a new generation.
Inspired by her father, Van is hoping to inherit the family business.
"My father has been such a big influence on me and I've been fortunate enough to watch what he does as a publisher and editor of a Vietnamese newspaper. It started at the back of the house we were living in and now it's turned into something really big, a successful business. And I wouldn't like to see the family name go under someone else's. I'd like to help him continue this successful newspaper."
