SO newspapers are shuttering by the dozens and journalism students are fleeing news agencies for higher--and higher--paying ground. Does that mean the profession should throw in the carpet? Hardly.
A lot has been said of what's going wrong in the journalism profession these days. Newspapers are declining, advertisers are refusing to buy ad space in print, and twenty and thirtysomethings are getting more of their news from online resources than dead trees. It's all added up to a witch's brew of mass layoffs that has many veterans--and more than a few interns--wondering what their future is going to be in the midst of a global economic crisis that has accelerated a steady decline in newsprint. But there is a way out. It's painful, and there is no guarantee that newspapers will return to their former glory, but it's so crazy, it just might create a few jobs.
Step One: Fill in the war chest at the Freedom Forum. According to their 2007-08 report, the nonpartisan center focused on First Amendment issues, and media education projects received over $43 million in private giving in 2007--a 76 percent decrease and a drop in the bucket compared to the 30 percent each they received from domestic equity and hedge funds. That number has probably declined since the recession--nowhere in Econ 101 does it say that hedge funds are recession proof--meaning that the $1.1 billion in assets they enjoyed two years ago are kaput, made redundant, you get the idea. If the industry can get over its pride and hit up financiers for funding for the center, then perhaps the Freedom Forum can use the money for private grants to fund small newspapers. Just a thought.
Step Two: Take to the airwaves. Since newspapers started folding in 2008, the public perception has been that newspapers are dying--and taking the profession along with them. While it's true that interest in newsprint is waning, journalism is far from dead. Everyone from the New York Times to Rolling Stone magazine are going online--they're just not charging anyone for access to their articles. That needs to change. But first the public must be softened up--to use military jargon--and made known of the new changes. An advertising campaign on TV and radio will do the job just fine. It's expensive, no doubt, but if the New York Times buys TV slots for their ailing newspaper, the industry can buy ad slots to promote the idea of subscription-based news sites.
Step Three: Invest in community newspapers. Once upon a time, small, independent newspapers and newsletters flourished in urban and rural locales. Many, such as I. F. Stone's I.F. Stone's Weekly, were privately funded--mostly through donations. These were the alternative presses of their day. It was only in the 1990s, as deregulation in print and cable made the environment more competitive, that organs such as the Village Voice abandoned subscription models in favor of ads. As big newspapers flounder and two paper towns become one--or more often, no paper towns--it is high time that the industry reinvest in these small time operations, through grants, if need be (see Step One). Just because they aren't household names doesn't mean they aren't good news agencies--look at the Brooklyn Daily News Web site sometime.
Step Four: Invest in our future--invest in community colleges and correspondence centers. As liberal arts majors such as journalism and communications continue to slag behind "well paying" professions like chemistry, finance and education, the profession needs to do more to get out beyond the ivory tower and recruit from the vast unwashed of our community colleges and correspondence centers. Though they might not have the same pedigree as a student from Chapel Hill or UCLA, these potential interns have something the J-school kids don't: real life experience. Many of them come from military backgrounds and law enforcement backgrounds--giving them added insight on topics like wiretapping, drug busts and a whole host of contemporary topics. Plus, you don't have to invest in a four-year education to make someone a reporter. This, by the way is how I started as an intern: I simply just waltzed into the office one day and asked if the staff at the community college I was attending needed any extra help. That was six years ago. Anyway, isn't this how Carl Bernstein got his start? And look where he's at right now.
So there you have it, my four-point plan for saving the Fourth Estate. It doesn't solve all of the industry's problems. But it sure does go a long way--and keeps the government out of the process at the same time.
Source: thecelebritycafe.com
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Don’t Stop the Presses!
Ten experts share their ideas for reinventing the print newspaper
Try to count the number of times a death knell has sounded for the print newspaper, and you’ll quickly run out of fingers. Despite continued rumors of its impending demise, print still accounts for the overwhelming majority of revenue at most newspaper companies. It also plays an important role for readers.
The print newspaper’s job is to “accurately reflect what is going on in the community, meet readers’ needs for news and information and act as a watchdog on government,” says Kenneth A. Paulson, president and chief operating officer of the Newseum (www.newseum.org) and a former editor of USA Today and USAToday.com.
Still, as digital offerings grow and readers’ habits change, many publishers are looking at how to reinvent the core newspaper, whether by cutting sections or days of distribution or more closely tying their print and online products together. In this time of transition, PRESSTIME asked 10 experts—inside and outside the industry—to write a mission statement for today’s core print product, tell us what elements of the current paper they would include if they were starting a print product from scratch and gaze into their crystal balls to predict what that product will look like in two, five and 10 years.
We found areas of agreement and divergent opinions. Think of this as a stimulating dinner party conversation about the future of print, and pull up a chair at our table.
Our guests:
* Ken Doctor, blogger, Content Bridges; affiliate analyst, Outsell Inc., an information market analytics firm; and former vice president of content services at Knight Ridder Digital
* Mario R. Garcia, chief executive officer and founder, Garcia Media, a newspaper design firm
* Juan Antonio Giner, partner, INNOVATION, an international media consulting group in Pamplona, Spain, and blogger, What’s Next: Innovations in Newspapers
* Charlotte H. Hall, senior vice president and editor, Orlando Sentinel, and president, American Society of Newspaper Editors
* Alan Jacobson, president and chief executive officer, Brass Tacks Design, a newspaper design firm
* Ted Leonsis, founder, chairman and majority owner, Lincoln Holdings LLC, which owns the Washington Capitals and Washington Mystics, and vice chairman emeritus, AOL LLC
* Tim J. McGuire, Frank Russell Chair, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University in Phoenix, and former editor and senior vice president, Star Tribune in Minneapolis
* Alan D. Mutter, blogger, Reflections of a Newsosaur (http://newsosaur.blogspot.com) and managing partner, Tapit Partners, an information technology consulting firm
* Kenneth A. Paulson, president and chief operating officer, Newseum, and former editor, USA Today and USAToday.com
* Howard Weaver, blogger, Etaoin Shrdlu and former vice president of news for The McClatchy Co. in Sacramento
Q: What is the mission of today’s core newspaper?
Garcia: The core newspaper is: 1) provider of news summaries for readers who may not be reading online; 2) provider of analysis and interpretation for those readers who are what I call “printnets”—those who read both online and in print; [and] 3) source of advertising supplements and other items that readers still seek and need.
Doctor: Our daily print newspaper must remain, first of all, daily. Publishers should not be the ones to break the daily print reading habit for the tens of millions of Americans who still look forward to their morning hit. Second, the core paper must please its core audience—which is becoming more niche-like, baby boomer-plus in age—and likewise retain as much of the print advertising that will sustain companies’ transition to hybrid print/digital companies.
Mutter: Even though the newspaper generates 90 percent of a typical publisher’s sales, it is a mistake to think of it as the “core product.” The true core products of a newspaper company are its abilities to produce compelling content, build large audiences, sell advertising and make a profit. The publishers who succeed in the future will be agnostic about the platforms they use to capitalize on those core strengths.
McGuire: Print products cannot get caught up in “commodity” information. Everything a print source does must “add value.” Even weather and sports must be presented in ways that distinguish the information from commodity sources.
Leonsis: The core mission is to reinvent [the newspaper] to be a more integrated community information programmer. Newspapers now need to focus one-third on presentation of national news and activation of discussion around a topic, one-third on hyperlocal news and get community comment and a Wiki-like environment created around each local bit of information, and then one-third on creating a third-party network to sell advertisers within its environment as well as related affiliated print and online environments.
You’re starting a newspaper print product from scratch. What stays, and what goes (sections, beats, days published, classified ads)? How do you rethink the parts you keep?
Mutter: The traditional, one-size-fits-all newspaper should be a concise, reasonably comprehensive and extremely well-organized guide to the community. It should leverage the strengths of print: deep reporting, thoughtful analysis, fine writing and elegant visuals. It should avoid the weaknesses of print by de-emphasizing warmed-over coverage of stale, widely reported news.
Paulson: Most newspapers have an extraordinarily loyal core audience that has been doing the crossword puzzles, reading the obits and scanning the stock tables for years. These are generally older readers who will need and read our content for decades. The challenge is to weigh whatever changes you may have in mind against the expectations of this core readership. Yes, you can drop TV listings and replace them with new content to try to attract younger readers, but at what price? Will the gain offset the loss?
Garcia: If I am starting a newspaper from scratch, I may consider doing a robust Sunday edition, then creating the ultimate online newspaper for daily. I may even consider a very short, one-section, printed daily edition, but acting more like a companion to the online than a self-standing newspaper. I would print it in an A4 compact format, and I would make a sort of navigational tool to [information] that readers must know that day.
Hall: Readers want perceptive and analytical coverage of national and international news, plus advertisers love it, so the A-section stays. Local news, commentary and interactivity with readers are our franchise, so the news reports, the columnists, the editorial page, the letters to the editor and other interactive commentary are our core. Sports [remains and] focuses on opinion, enterprise and analysis.
In features, the comics, puzzles and advice stays, and all the fun stuff to do and see (movie reviews, local day trips, concerts, etc.). But some lifestyle content goes away unless there is advertising to support it (food or travel, for example). Excellent photography and graphics stay. They engage the reader emotionally and intellectually.
Traditional storytelling morphs into a combination of alternative story forms for short, explanatory information and narrative storytelling for compelling human stories, and the 25-inch story on incremental government action disappears.
A number of newspapers are eliminating sections or days of distribution. Do these efforts strengthen the core product in the long run?
Mutter: Publishers should make every effort to sustain the continuity of their publication cycles, because disruptions will anger and disorient loyal readers and send a not-so-subliminal message to advertisers that it really isn’t important to be in the newspaper on a regular basis. To the degree a publisher is in extremis because there is insufficient readership or advertising to support a traditional, one-size-fits-all newspaper on certain days of the week, she should begin to develop niche publications such as sports on Monday; family and kids on Tuesday; food, dining, health and fitness on Wednesday; weekend planners on Thursday; and guy stuff like cars, sports and electronics on Friday.
Niche days will give newspapers an opportunity to revitalize the relevance of print while attracting the attention of new, unexploited audiences and fresh advertising dollars.
McGuire: Printing some days may be a viable answer, but it’s happening for all the wrong reasons. More newspapers ought to be asking where are the holes in my media market, and how can I fill them? And they should be asking if we make certain moves in this market like publishing three times a week, what are the counter moves I can expect? I am going to be stunned if a competitor does not put a Sunday-Monday sports product into Detroit. The Detroit papers should do that before a competitor does.
Weaver: Traditional sectioning is perhaps the easiest and most obvious thing to change. Some papers that have done so have faced less audience reaction than many anticipated. Skipping days seems to me a more draconian and less viable approach.
Doctor: I call it “dayscrapping,” and it needs to be done judiciously. I’ve talked to publishers who are going to cut Monday and Tuesday classified sections and believe they can just extend 11-day buys out farther. That makes good sense. Dropping days altogether saves significant costs in the short run but accelerates the transition to digital—and we know there’s far less money in digital publishing at this point.
Let’s not, above all, fool ourselves. Cutting back the core product doesn’t strengthen it. It may be a necessary evil, but pitching a less-is-more approach to readers won’t fool them. Rethinking and reorganizing the core product (and coming clean with readers about the impetus for the changes) is the way to go.
Who is the audience for the core newspaper in terms of readers and advertisers? Who should it be aimed at?
Mutter: Editors and publishers need to adopt a zero-based, market-driven approach to what they do. They need to learn to ask their readers and nonreaders what they want—and then respond creatively to the answers. Ideally, a paper in Kansas City should not look, act and feel like a paper in Orange County, Calif., or Orange County, Fla. Yet, apart from the datelines on the local stories, they mostly do. That’s because newspaper people are more comfortable copying each other than taking the risk of trying something new.
Weaver: As grandma always said, “You dance with them that brung you.” Serving the existing audience is a primary concern. That difficult transition—letting go with one hand while grasping the new with the other—remains a huge challenge.
Doctor: The average print newspaper reader is about [age] 57. It’s a great audience, with above-average income, wealth and education. It’s just not the mass audience of yesteryear. Newspapers have to match their real audiences with advertisers who really want to reach those audiences and price accordingly.
Giner: Print newspapers cannot be “newspapers for everybody with everything” because they will end up as newspapers for nobody. Focus on la crème de la crème of your specific market.
In the past, reinventing the core product might have been seen as just redesigning the look of the paper. Is that still part of it? What else needs to be done?
Jacobson: For 20 years, I’ve been saying that cosmetic redesigns are a waste of time and money. Here’s what needs to be done: Change the editing to include content that is compelling, relevant, interesting and useful to readers—and eliminate everything else.
McGuire: Print publishers need to totally rethink what they are doing and [ask]:
* Do I want to deliver eyeballs to customers, or do I want to entice customers to pay for the product or a combination of the two? How do I support the news gathering I want to do?
* Is this a mass endeavor, or it is targeted? What are the information opportunities for that market?
* What is my role in the democratic process? If you want one, go for it. If you want to be all Britney [Spears], all the time, chuck the democracy façade.
* What are the market’s information needs and potentials?
* What is it that we can do for our market that nobody else can, and how valuable will that be to the market? If it is a commodity product, I can’t charge much. If it is truly special and distinguishable, the value of my product is greater.
* Invent a new product that is not tied to yesterday but is tied to serving your market or community. Create and add value that meets the market’s needs.
Leonsis: [Develop] a core competency in ad sales so that the organization can represent other local media companies to build scale and create mini advertising.com-like businesses in each market. Who would or should know more about local buying habits in a market or seasonality or traditions than a local paper? Who knows the advertising community better? Leveraging and making databases and metric-based marketing programs will be very important for the organization’s future.
In a Web-first, print-second world, what role does the core newspaper play? What is its relation to other products?
Jacobson: The core product is the delivery vehicle for free-standing advertising inserts and an opportunity to introduce print-centric readers to online offerings.
Hall: It stops the clock once a day and takes an assessment, offering the kind of in-depth and analytical work that the 24/7 breaking news world on the Web cannot provide. Print is good at the things the Web is not good at—watchdog, explanatory, enterprise, narrative storytelling. The two media complement one another. One is the flowing river, changing constantly; the other is the rock on the shore, fixed and solid.
Giner: Print and online are different, but they must be developed, produced, edited and presented from an integrated multimedia newsroom superdesk that plans, plans and plans. You will not succeed in these integrated newsrooms if you are not a very strong and creative planner.
Doctor: My sense is this. It’s a comfort product, one that tens of millions of Americans like, just as they like their trip to Starbucks. It’s a convenient product, browsable and portable, something the Web still isn’t. I love being able to read The New York Times on my iPhone but not for long stretches. It oozes community, if its journalism is authentic and good, much more than any wonderful news Web site. All these qualities should be emphasized in product creation and marketing.
How can the core newspaper be reinvented or redesigned for greater synergy with online efforts?
Mutter: If I had to pick one idea, it would be to put quality user-generated content from the Web site in the newspaper, just as important stories from print are posted to the Web.
Paulson: The best way is simply to have complementary content so that readers on either platform know where they can go for more information and an expanded experience.
Leonsis: One team, one set of combined metrics. Circulation to work on search optimization, creating news and information widgets and getting them distributed; one ad sales team to sell ads across CPM [cost per thousand], CPC [cost per click] and CPA [cost per action] and e-commerce upsells; one editorial team to really be 24/7 bloggers, with the best getting into the paper itself, from reporters and from readers, users.
What’s the biggest obstacle to reinvention, and how do you remove (or at least lessen) it?
Hall: Old-style thinking can frustrate redesign. The lack of vision is the other major obstacle. Editors need a vision of how to differentiate their product from the Web but also make it as exciting and new as digital media. Visuals get you part of the way there. A new approach to writing and storytelling can get you the rest of the way.
Weaver: If “core product” means printed newspaper, the obstacle is that this traditional product is both profitable and expensive to produce, anchoring newspaper companies to a revenue and cost structure that is increasingly difficult to sustain but impossible to let go of. The solution lies in the hard, painful work of restructuring expenses—layoffs, outsourcing and the rest—while invigorating new sources of revenue, chiefly online.
Doctor: Five decades of unprecedented success. That success has hardened our thinking about what content on pulp should look like and how it should be organized. Newer transit tabs point one direction in reinventing print products, in thinking what gets included, length of stories and presentation. The imperative: Start with blank newsprint and map it to a specific news consumer’s habits. The biggest issue is getting beyond a one-size-fits-all product, whether print or online. Unless you do that, you end up pretzelized in compromise.
What will the core newspaper look like in two, five and 10 years?
Garcia: In some communities, the core printed product will not be around in two, five or 10 years. In others, it will publish less often, as [only] Friday and Sunday, for example. The daily ones will be compact formats, some even the A4 format, already popular in many countries in Europe. They will be inspired by magazines and books, and less by traditional daily fare.
Doctor: It will be smaller, more expensive and fairly data-free. It may resemble the 32-page daily newsstand edition envisioned in Detroit.
Jacobson: In less than a year, there will be very few seven-day-a-week newspapers. In less than five years, newspapers will print for Sunday only. In less than 10 years, no newspapers will be printed.
Paulson: Newspapers will be smaller in size, more compact in presentation and more reliant on circulation revenue. The single-copy price will be significantly greater. As advertising in newsprint declines, readers will have to bear more of the cost of content. We’ll need to make it worth their while.
Hall: Change is rapid and continuous. It would be foolish to try to predict even two years out in our business. Liveliness, emotion and depth will be the key attributes in the next few years for print.
Source: NAA
Try to count the number of times a death knell has sounded for the print newspaper, and you’ll quickly run out of fingers. Despite continued rumors of its impending demise, print still accounts for the overwhelming majority of revenue at most newspaper companies. It also plays an important role for readers.
The print newspaper’s job is to “accurately reflect what is going on in the community, meet readers’ needs for news and information and act as a watchdog on government,” says Kenneth A. Paulson, president and chief operating officer of the Newseum (www.newseum.org) and a former editor of USA Today and USAToday.com.
Still, as digital offerings grow and readers’ habits change, many publishers are looking at how to reinvent the core newspaper, whether by cutting sections or days of distribution or more closely tying their print and online products together. In this time of transition, PRESSTIME asked 10 experts—inside and outside the industry—to write a mission statement for today’s core print product, tell us what elements of the current paper they would include if they were starting a print product from scratch and gaze into their crystal balls to predict what that product will look like in two, five and 10 years.
We found areas of agreement and divergent opinions. Think of this as a stimulating dinner party conversation about the future of print, and pull up a chair at our table.
Our guests:
* Ken Doctor, blogger, Content Bridges; affiliate analyst, Outsell Inc., an information market analytics firm; and former vice president of content services at Knight Ridder Digital
* Mario R. Garcia, chief executive officer and founder, Garcia Media, a newspaper design firm
* Juan Antonio Giner, partner, INNOVATION, an international media consulting group in Pamplona, Spain, and blogger, What’s Next: Innovations in Newspapers
* Charlotte H. Hall, senior vice president and editor, Orlando Sentinel, and president, American Society of Newspaper Editors
* Alan Jacobson, president and chief executive officer, Brass Tacks Design, a newspaper design firm
* Ted Leonsis, founder, chairman and majority owner, Lincoln Holdings LLC, which owns the Washington Capitals and Washington Mystics, and vice chairman emeritus, AOL LLC
* Tim J. McGuire, Frank Russell Chair, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University in Phoenix, and former editor and senior vice president, Star Tribune in Minneapolis
* Alan D. Mutter, blogger, Reflections of a Newsosaur (http://newsosaur.blogspot.com) and managing partner, Tapit Partners, an information technology consulting firm
* Kenneth A. Paulson, president and chief operating officer, Newseum, and former editor, USA Today and USAToday.com
* Howard Weaver, blogger, Etaoin Shrdlu and former vice president of news for The McClatchy Co. in Sacramento
Q: What is the mission of today’s core newspaper?
Garcia: The core newspaper is: 1) provider of news summaries for readers who may not be reading online; 2) provider of analysis and interpretation for those readers who are what I call “printnets”—those who read both online and in print; [and] 3) source of advertising supplements and other items that readers still seek and need.Doctor: Our daily print newspaper must remain, first of all, daily. Publishers should not be the ones to break the daily print reading habit for the tens of millions of Americans who still look forward to their morning hit. Second, the core paper must please its core audience—which is becoming more niche-like, baby boomer-plus in age—and likewise retain as much of the print advertising that will sustain companies’ transition to hybrid print/digital companies.
Mutter: Even though the newspaper generates 90 percent of a typical publisher’s sales, it is a mistake to think of it as the “core product.” The true core products of a newspaper company are its abilities to produce compelling content, build large audiences, sell advertising and make a profit. The publishers who succeed in the future will be agnostic about the platforms they use to capitalize on those core strengths.
McGuire: Print products cannot get caught up in “commodity” information. Everything a print source does must “add value.” Even weather and sports must be presented in ways that distinguish the information from commodity sources.
Leonsis: The core mission is to reinvent [the newspaper] to be a more integrated community information programmer. Newspapers now need to focus one-third on presentation of national news and activation of discussion around a topic, one-third on hyperlocal news and get community comment and a Wiki-like environment created around each local bit of information, and then one-third on creating a third-party network to sell advertisers within its environment as well as related affiliated print and online environments.
You’re starting a newspaper print product from scratch. What stays, and what goes (sections, beats, days published, classified ads)? How do you rethink the parts you keep?
Mutter: The traditional, one-size-fits-all newspaper should be a concise, reasonably comprehensive and extremely well-organized guide to the community. It should leverage the strengths of print: deep reporting, thoughtful analysis, fine writing and elegant visuals. It should avoid the weaknesses of print by de-emphasizing warmed-over coverage of stale, widely reported news.
Paulson: Most newspapers have an extraordinarily loyal core audience that has been doing the crossword puzzles, reading the obits and scanning the stock tables for years. These are generally older readers who will need and read our content for decades. The challenge is to weigh whatever changes you may have in mind against the expectations of this core readership. Yes, you can drop TV listings and replace them with new content to try to attract younger readers, but at what price? Will the gain offset the loss?
Garcia: If I am starting a newspaper from scratch, I may consider doing a robust Sunday edition, then creating the ultimate online newspaper for daily. I may even consider a very short, one-section, printed daily edition, but acting more like a companion to the online than a self-standing newspaper. I would print it in an A4 compact format, and I would make a sort of navigational tool to [information] that readers must know that day.
Hall: Readers want perceptive and analytical coverage of national and international news, plus advertisers love it, so the A-section stays. Local news, commentary and interactivity with readers are our franchise, so the news reports, the columnists, the editorial page, the letters to the editor and other interactive commentary are our core. Sports [remains and] focuses on opinion, enterprise and analysis.
In features, the comics, puzzles and advice stays, and all the fun stuff to do and see (movie reviews, local day trips, concerts, etc.). But some lifestyle content goes away unless there is advertising to support it (food or travel, for example). Excellent photography and graphics stay. They engage the reader emotionally and intellectually.
Traditional storytelling morphs into a combination of alternative story forms for short, explanatory information and narrative storytelling for compelling human stories, and the 25-inch story on incremental government action disappears.
A number of newspapers are eliminating sections or days of distribution. Do these efforts strengthen the core product in the long run?
Mutter: Publishers should make every effort to sustain the continuity of their publication cycles, because disruptions will anger and disorient loyal readers and send a not-so-subliminal message to advertisers that it really isn’t important to be in the newspaper on a regular basis. To the degree a publisher is in extremis because there is insufficient readership or advertising to support a traditional, one-size-fits-all newspaper on certain days of the week, she should begin to develop niche publications such as sports on Monday; family and kids on Tuesday; food, dining, health and fitness on Wednesday; weekend planners on Thursday; and guy stuff like cars, sports and electronics on Friday.
Niche days will give newspapers an opportunity to revitalize the relevance of print while attracting the attention of new, unexploited audiences and fresh advertising dollars.
McGuire: Printing some days may be a viable answer, but it’s happening for all the wrong reasons. More newspapers ought to be asking where are the holes in my media market, and how can I fill them? And they should be asking if we make certain moves in this market like publishing three times a week, what are the counter moves I can expect? I am going to be stunned if a competitor does not put a Sunday-Monday sports product into Detroit. The Detroit papers should do that before a competitor does.
Weaver: Traditional sectioning is perhaps the easiest and most obvious thing to change. Some papers that have done so have faced less audience reaction than many anticipated. Skipping days seems to me a more draconian and less viable approach.
Doctor: I call it “dayscrapping,” and it needs to be done judiciously. I’ve talked to publishers who are going to cut Monday and Tuesday classified sections and believe they can just extend 11-day buys out farther. That makes good sense. Dropping days altogether saves significant costs in the short run but accelerates the transition to digital—and we know there’s far less money in digital publishing at this point.
Let’s not, above all, fool ourselves. Cutting back the core product doesn’t strengthen it. It may be a necessary evil, but pitching a less-is-more approach to readers won’t fool them. Rethinking and reorganizing the core product (and coming clean with readers about the impetus for the changes) is the way to go.
Who is the audience for the core newspaper in terms of readers and advertisers? Who should it be aimed at?
Mutter: Editors and publishers need to adopt a zero-based, market-driven approach to what they do. They need to learn to ask their readers and nonreaders what they want—and then respond creatively to the answers. Ideally, a paper in Kansas City should not look, act and feel like a paper in Orange County, Calif., or Orange County, Fla. Yet, apart from the datelines on the local stories, they mostly do. That’s because newspaper people are more comfortable copying each other than taking the risk of trying something new.
Weaver: As grandma always said, “You dance with them that brung you.” Serving the existing audience is a primary concern. That difficult transition—letting go with one hand while grasping the new with the other—remains a huge challenge.
Doctor: The average print newspaper reader is about [age] 57. It’s a great audience, with above-average income, wealth and education. It’s just not the mass audience of yesteryear. Newspapers have to match their real audiences with advertisers who really want to reach those audiences and price accordingly.
Giner: Print newspapers cannot be “newspapers for everybody with everything” because they will end up as newspapers for nobody. Focus on la crème de la crème of your specific market.
In the past, reinventing the core product might have been seen as just redesigning the look of the paper. Is that still part of it? What else needs to be done?
Jacobson: For 20 years, I’ve been saying that cosmetic redesigns are a waste of time and money. Here’s what needs to be done: Change the editing to include content that is compelling, relevant, interesting and useful to readers—and eliminate everything else.
McGuire: Print publishers need to totally rethink what they are doing and [ask]:
* Do I want to deliver eyeballs to customers, or do I want to entice customers to pay for the product or a combination of the two? How do I support the news gathering I want to do?
* Is this a mass endeavor, or it is targeted? What are the information opportunities for that market?
* What is my role in the democratic process? If you want one, go for it. If you want to be all Britney [Spears], all the time, chuck the democracy façade.
* What are the market’s information needs and potentials?
* What is it that we can do for our market that nobody else can, and how valuable will that be to the market? If it is a commodity product, I can’t charge much. If it is truly special and distinguishable, the value of my product is greater.
* Invent a new product that is not tied to yesterday but is tied to serving your market or community. Create and add value that meets the market’s needs.
Leonsis: [Develop] a core competency in ad sales so that the organization can represent other local media companies to build scale and create mini advertising.com-like businesses in each market. Who would or should know more about local buying habits in a market or seasonality or traditions than a local paper? Who knows the advertising community better? Leveraging and making databases and metric-based marketing programs will be very important for the organization’s future.
In a Web-first, print-second world, what role does the core newspaper play? What is its relation to other products?
Jacobson: The core product is the delivery vehicle for free-standing advertising inserts and an opportunity to introduce print-centric readers to online offerings.
Hall: It stops the clock once a day and takes an assessment, offering the kind of in-depth and analytical work that the 24/7 breaking news world on the Web cannot provide. Print is good at the things the Web is not good at—watchdog, explanatory, enterprise, narrative storytelling. The two media complement one another. One is the flowing river, changing constantly; the other is the rock on the shore, fixed and solid.
Giner: Print and online are different, but they must be developed, produced, edited and presented from an integrated multimedia newsroom superdesk that plans, plans and plans. You will not succeed in these integrated newsrooms if you are not a very strong and creative planner.
Doctor: My sense is this. It’s a comfort product, one that tens of millions of Americans like, just as they like their trip to Starbucks. It’s a convenient product, browsable and portable, something the Web still isn’t. I love being able to read The New York Times on my iPhone but not for long stretches. It oozes community, if its journalism is authentic and good, much more than any wonderful news Web site. All these qualities should be emphasized in product creation and marketing.
How can the core newspaper be reinvented or redesigned for greater synergy with online efforts?
Mutter: If I had to pick one idea, it would be to put quality user-generated content from the Web site in the newspaper, just as important stories from print are posted to the Web.
Paulson: The best way is simply to have complementary content so that readers on either platform know where they can go for more information and an expanded experience.Leonsis: One team, one set of combined metrics. Circulation to work on search optimization, creating news and information widgets and getting them distributed; one ad sales team to sell ads across CPM [cost per thousand], CPC [cost per click] and CPA [cost per action] and e-commerce upsells; one editorial team to really be 24/7 bloggers, with the best getting into the paper itself, from reporters and from readers, users.
What’s the biggest obstacle to reinvention, and how do you remove (or at least lessen) it?
Hall: Old-style thinking can frustrate redesign. The lack of vision is the other major obstacle. Editors need a vision of how to differentiate their product from the Web but also make it as exciting and new as digital media. Visuals get you part of the way there. A new approach to writing and storytelling can get you the rest of the way.
Weaver: If “core product” means printed newspaper, the obstacle is that this traditional product is both profitable and expensive to produce, anchoring newspaper companies to a revenue and cost structure that is increasingly difficult to sustain but impossible to let go of. The solution lies in the hard, painful work of restructuring expenses—layoffs, outsourcing and the rest—while invigorating new sources of revenue, chiefly online.
Doctor: Five decades of unprecedented success. That success has hardened our thinking about what content on pulp should look like and how it should be organized. Newer transit tabs point one direction in reinventing print products, in thinking what gets included, length of stories and presentation. The imperative: Start with blank newsprint and map it to a specific news consumer’s habits. The biggest issue is getting beyond a one-size-fits-all product, whether print or online. Unless you do that, you end up pretzelized in compromise.
What will the core newspaper look like in two, five and 10 years?
Garcia: In some communities, the core printed product will not be around in two, five or 10 years. In others, it will publish less often, as [only] Friday and Sunday, for example. The daily ones will be compact formats, some even the A4 format, already popular in many countries in Europe. They will be inspired by magazines and books, and less by traditional daily fare.
Doctor: It will be smaller, more expensive and fairly data-free. It may resemble the 32-page daily newsstand edition envisioned in Detroit.
Jacobson: In less than a year, there will be very few seven-day-a-week newspapers. In less than five years, newspapers will print for Sunday only. In less than 10 years, no newspapers will be printed.
Paulson: Newspapers will be smaller in size, more compact in presentation and more reliant on circulation revenue. The single-copy price will be significantly greater. As advertising in newsprint declines, readers will have to bear more of the cost of content. We’ll need to make it worth their while.
Hall: Change is rapid and continuous. It would be foolish to try to predict even two years out in our business. Liveliness, emotion and depth will be the key attributes in the next few years for print.
Source: NAA
Newspaper ad revenue may plunge 22 percent
U.S. newspaper advertising revenue may plunge 22 percent this year as demand falls, forcing more publications out of business, a Barclays Capital analyst said.
Industrywide newspaper ad revenue will probably drop to $27.1 billion from $34.7 billion last year, including a decline of as much as 25 percent in the first half, Craig Huber of Barclays in New York said today in a research report.
"Over the next three years, a number of daily newspapers in the United States will be shut down given the various pressures on the business," said Huber. "Newspapers are in their worst competitive position in decades, if not ever, to raise advertising rates or even to try to keep them flat."
Five newspaper publishers have sought bankruptcy protection since December, including Chicago's Sun-Times Media Group Inc. yesterday, as readers migrate to the Web, where ad rates are lower. Publishers are halting print editions, firing people and selling assets to cope with plummeting revenue.
Classified sales will drop 35 percent, the biggest decline in any major ad category, followed by a 23 percent plunge in national ads, Huber estimated. Local retail advertising, which accounts for more than half of newspaper revenue, may fall 14 percent, he projected. He also predicted newspapers share of the ad market will fall to 11 percent this year from 12 percent.
Source: Daily Herald
Industrywide newspaper ad revenue will probably drop to $27.1 billion from $34.7 billion last year, including a decline of as much as 25 percent in the first half, Craig Huber of Barclays in New York said today in a research report.
"Over the next three years, a number of daily newspapers in the United States will be shut down given the various pressures on the business," said Huber. "Newspapers are in their worst competitive position in decades, if not ever, to raise advertising rates or even to try to keep them flat."
Five newspaper publishers have sought bankruptcy protection since December, including Chicago's Sun-Times Media Group Inc. yesterday, as readers migrate to the Web, where ad rates are lower. Publishers are halting print editions, firing people and selling assets to cope with plummeting revenue.
Classified sales will drop 35 percent, the biggest decline in any major ad category, followed by a 23 percent plunge in national ads, Huber estimated. Local retail advertising, which accounts for more than half of newspaper revenue, may fall 14 percent, he projected. He also predicted newspapers share of the ad market will fall to 11 percent this year from 12 percent.
Source: Daily Herald
Can newspapers turn innovation into hard cash?
The Sun became the most popular UK newspaper online for the first time in February, registering an eye-watering 27.3 million unique users, according to ABCe figures.
The site, which includes sister title News of the World, benefited from high-profile celebrity stories such as Jade Goody's illness and classic tabloid fare such as 13-year-old Alfie Patten and the "Is he/isn't he the father?" tale.
Its unique users were up by five million compared to January and more than doubled year on year. By anyone's standards, the traffic attracted by UK national newspaper brands is impressive, although there is always the caveat that between 50% and 75% of it typically comes from overseas - only 8.3 million of The Sun's traffic is of UK origin, for example.
The Sun is looking to build on its success with a newly constructed £1m TV and radio studio at Wapping, which goes live with its first radio show, the Jon Gaunt-fronted Sun Talk, on Monday, 21 April, featuring Conservative Party leader David Cameron as its first guest. The plan is for News International journalists to generate audio and video content across all its titles and participate in live broadcasts.
However, the acid test will be the amount of income generated, for if newspapers are to have a long-term future, they must start making money out of their massive online audiences. For example, it is understood headline sponsorship of Jon Gaunt's Sun Talk was on offer for just £60,000, which is hardly going to replace the display and classified ad revenue haemorrhaging from NI's print coffers.
Other pertinent questions include: is overseas traffic any use to advertisers and, by extension, media owners? Can consumers be persuaded to pay for premium content, such as dating, mobile updates or fantasy football? Is traffic generated by clever search engine optimisation delivering audiences that are at all relevant to newspaper brands and their advertisers?
It's early days and it makes a change to be talking about positive and proactive developments when it comes to newspaper companies - for which The Sun should be applauded - but, ultimately, no one has yet crossed the threshold and turned innovation into hard cash.
Source: MediaWeek
The site, which includes sister title News of the World, benefited from high-profile celebrity stories such as Jade Goody's illness and classic tabloid fare such as 13-year-old Alfie Patten and the "Is he/isn't he the father?" tale.
Its unique users were up by five million compared to January and more than doubled year on year. By anyone's standards, the traffic attracted by UK national newspaper brands is impressive, although there is always the caveat that between 50% and 75% of it typically comes from overseas - only 8.3 million of The Sun's traffic is of UK origin, for example.
The Sun is looking to build on its success with a newly constructed £1m TV and radio studio at Wapping, which goes live with its first radio show, the Jon Gaunt-fronted Sun Talk, on Monday, 21 April, featuring Conservative Party leader David Cameron as its first guest. The plan is for News International journalists to generate audio and video content across all its titles and participate in live broadcasts.
However, the acid test will be the amount of income generated, for if newspapers are to have a long-term future, they must start making money out of their massive online audiences. For example, it is understood headline sponsorship of Jon Gaunt's Sun Talk was on offer for just £60,000, which is hardly going to replace the display and classified ad revenue haemorrhaging from NI's print coffers.
Other pertinent questions include: is overseas traffic any use to advertisers and, by extension, media owners? Can consumers be persuaded to pay for premium content, such as dating, mobile updates or fantasy football? Is traffic generated by clever search engine optimisation delivering audiences that are at all relevant to newspaper brands and their advertisers?
It's early days and it makes a change to be talking about positive and proactive developments when it comes to newspaper companies - for which The Sun should be applauded - but, ultimately, no one has yet crossed the threshold and turned innovation into hard cash.
Source: MediaWeek
SPH equipped to succeed
MEDIA group Singapore Press Holdings, with its 25 years track record, is well equipped to succeed in the new publishing climate, said President SR Nathan on Monday.
He said SPH has made a name for itself as a leading media group and an authority on news and information in the Asean and the greater China region.
"It offers high quality content not only through the print media, but through online and mobile platforms as well," said Mr Nathan at the SPH's 25th anniversary celebrations at its News Centre in Toa Payoh North, where he unveiled the company's new logo with SPH chairman, Dr Tony Tan.
In his address, he paid tribute to all "who toil to produce the SPH publications," including those who were part of SPH past.
Mr Nathan, who was Executive Chairman of The Straits Times Press from 1982 to 1988 and an SPH Director from 1984 to 1988, recalled the emergence of SPH, following its merger 25 years ago.
"There were many concerns about the new company, not only among the staff but also the general public alike," he said. "Would the newspapers be able to compete with each other now that they were under the same management? Would they be able to keep their own independence and identity, yet at the same time, share a common bond and company culture?"
"Those were some of the questions asked. Despite such doubts and the odds, SPH emerged a successful and stronger media organization, meeting all the challenges head-on."
He described his six years with The Straits Times Press and SPH as a "unique experience for me."
"When I accepted the job of heading Straits Times Press, I had no prior experience with the workings of newsrooms and other aspects of the production and distribution of newspapers," he said.
"The day before I started work, the then Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, told me: 'Nathan, I'm giving you The Straits Times. It has something like 150 years of history. It is like a bowl of china. You break it, I can piece it together again, but it will never be the same. Try not to."
"I am proud to say that the bowl that was handed to me and passed on to successor leaders of SPH remains unbroken -- in fact it has achieved a better glow with successive years."
On the new challenge SPH faces in the publishing industry, with competition from the electronic media and its wider critical reading public; their new lifestyles, preoccupations and demands, Mr Nathan said: "I am confident SPH with its 25 years of track record is well equipped to succeed in this new climate."
Source: The Straits Times
He said SPH has made a name for itself as a leading media group and an authority on news and information in the Asean and the greater China region.
"It offers high quality content not only through the print media, but through online and mobile platforms as well," said Mr Nathan at the SPH's 25th anniversary celebrations at its News Centre in Toa Payoh North, where he unveiled the company's new logo with SPH chairman, Dr Tony Tan.
In his address, he paid tribute to all "who toil to produce the SPH publications," including those who were part of SPH past.
Mr Nathan, who was Executive Chairman of The Straits Times Press from 1982 to 1988 and an SPH Director from 1984 to 1988, recalled the emergence of SPH, following its merger 25 years ago.
"There were many concerns about the new company, not only among the staff but also the general public alike," he said. "Would the newspapers be able to compete with each other now that they were under the same management? Would they be able to keep their own independence and identity, yet at the same time, share a common bond and company culture?"
"Those were some of the questions asked. Despite such doubts and the odds, SPH emerged a successful and stronger media organization, meeting all the challenges head-on."
He described his six years with The Straits Times Press and SPH as a "unique experience for me."
"When I accepted the job of heading Straits Times Press, I had no prior experience with the workings of newsrooms and other aspects of the production and distribution of newspapers," he said.
"The day before I started work, the then Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, told me: 'Nathan, I'm giving you The Straits Times. It has something like 150 years of history. It is like a bowl of china. You break it, I can piece it together again, but it will never be the same. Try not to."
"I am proud to say that the bowl that was handed to me and passed on to successor leaders of SPH remains unbroken -- in fact it has achieved a better glow with successive years."
On the new challenge SPH faces in the publishing industry, with competition from the electronic media and its wider critical reading public; their new lifestyles, preoccupations and demands, Mr Nathan said: "I am confident SPH with its 25 years of track record is well equipped to succeed in this new climate."
Source: The Straits Times
Top 10 business mistakes that newspapers must avoid as they go online-only
I'd like to welcome the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to the world of pureplay, online-only local Internet sites. They have a heckuva a jumpstart with their level of web traffic which any local site would be thrilled to have. Unfortunately, there are many other items that they must put in place to succeed. To their credit, they have taken some good first steps. The first and painful step was reducing headcount which reflects the reality that revenues will be lower for awhile. However, no business can cost cut your way to a successful business. The second laudable step was outlining how they plan to position themselves as a digital marketing agency with their advertisers selling everything from Yahoo display ads to paid search from all the major search engines.
Nonetheless, this is all moot if they don't develop a viable revenue model to go along with it, something they have no apparent experience with since the Seattle Times had done all of their advertising sales as part of their JOA. The painful truth is that 99% of the local Internet plays have proven how NOT to develop a sustainable model. Some newspapers have claimed their online properties are profitable but this is a suspect claim since they weren't burdened with the costs borne by the print product. In other words, most local online plays are subsidized by an offline counterpart which the P-I no longer has.
One of my observations from attending the New Business Models for News conference hosted by CUNY and run by Jeff Jarvis (of Buzzmachine & What Would Google Do? fame) and David Cohn (Spot.us) was that virtually all of the new business model discussion was about ways to lower production costs or new ways to fund journalism. While those items help, it's clear the only path to long-term economic viability is to directly address the revenue piece of the equation.
Having spent the last 13 years off and on working on local Internet media, I've made my share of mistakes and have learned many lessons along the way. I've applied those to the site that I own and run (SunValleyOnline.com) and have managed to build a modestly profitable business. I hope the P-I has success so I'm sharing what I believe are the 10 most common mistakes that have prevented most local media sites from having success.
The following are the list of things the P-I, and other online-only newspapers, should avoid that most other local websites haven't avoided:
1. Many local websites assume that since they've been in the business for a long time that they don't need to conduct any research with their customers and non-customers. When we did research, we learned things that changed how we positioned our website to our advertisers as well as it informed our editorial direction. We also gained terrific insights into how much we did/didn't overlap with our competition.
2. While most of us in the local publishing business think our site is available to everyone, the P-I should avoid the one-size-fits-all mentality. It's a mistake to have your sales team start calling on as many advertisers as possible without regard to vertical market, psychographic attributes, etc. A well-honed value proposition for a particular segment is more work but worth it.
3. Until we did research, we had no ability to quantify the value of our audience. Just because one is the market leader (in terms of traffic) you still need to articulate a return-on-investment calculation to a prospect. Just as important, it's important to worry about calibrating expectations with your advertiser about your advertising. Most small businesses need help and can have unrealistic expectations. If you don't set expectations properly, the advertisers will "one and done" -- i.e., they won't renew as they may have had wildly out of proportion expectations.
4. Most newspaper sites clutter up their pages with as many ads as possible. After all, if there are more ads on the page, doesn't that mean more ad revenue? [Hint: No] Many of these sites also use tiny static ads. There has been ample research on ad effectiveness of various types of banner ads. Apply that insight. While banner ads are the mainstream "solution" today, I'm fully convinced that new models of matching buyers and sellers will emerge. Google's AdWords has been the "killer app" for online advertising but there'll be others. Our motto is to test, analyze, refine, test, analyze, refine. I have little doubt that we'll look back 10 years from now and laugh at what we considered to be state of the art.
5. Most media sales organizations aren't tightly defining each step of the sales process with the corresponding likelihood of closing the deal. Too many also don't have a systematic Win/Loss analysis process. While there are thousands of businesses in Seattle, it's a path to failure to think you can just churn through advertisers.
6. Most local media sites simply create a rate card and when it's time to ask for the order, toss it over the transom. The thinking is "A rate card is just a rate card. No need to use it as a strategic selling tool." In reality, it has a lot to do with driving long-term retention of an advertiser as well as creating scarcity during the initial sales process. If they understand the rate card and you remind them on a monthly basis of how you are delivering against your agreement, advertiser retention rates will climb.
7. There's a myth that since advertising is a "relationship" business it's necessary to hire expensive shoe-leather salespeople as that's the way it's always been done. Many don't have a grasp of how one builds a world-class Inside Sales organization and assume that an Inside Sales organization wouldn't work for media sales. Unfortunately, they forget the fact that they are trying to extend beyond the normal 10% penetration of local businesses that newspapers have and that this means less revenue per account. That demands a lower cost model. Just because you are hiring an experienced media sales person with lots of field experience doesn't mean that they'll know how to create a low cost customer acquisition team/model. This is a radically different skill set.
8. Unfortunately when many local media organizations hire their online sales people, they don't worry about making the distinction between "hunters" (i.e., sales people adept at developing new relationships) and "farmers" (i.e., account manager types that like to develop long-term customer relationships). Just because some sales people have an impressive roster of past clients from their offline sales experience it doesn't mean they will know how to build a new book of business.
9. The P-I is fortunate that they have a buyer's market when it comes to hiring but that doesn't automatically mean they'll hire the sales talent with the greatest potential. I've seen growing sales organizations hire unseasoned but high potential sales people and have great success. Having the right job descriptions with accompanying compensation and quota models is critical. It's also vital to have a structured and ongoing process for developing the sales team's sales and marketing skills. The P-I needs to have much more than an initial training curriculum and then "turn them loose" to make some rain. High performing sales teams train all the time.
10. The P-I needs to do more than just provide the sales team with a salesforce automation tool so they can use it to manage their pipelines. It can be a strategic tool for the business on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis not only for the sales team but also the executive team. We often see a tool such as Salesforce.com be under-utilized.
There are many astute and experienced readers and I hope you add your thoughts so we can tap the collective intelligence as no one I know purports to have all the answers in this evolving area. It's an exciting (and challenging) time for those of us in local media. I wish the P-I all the best.
Source: Knight Digital Media
Nonetheless, this is all moot if they don't develop a viable revenue model to go along with it, something they have no apparent experience with since the Seattle Times had done all of their advertising sales as part of their JOA. The painful truth is that 99% of the local Internet plays have proven how NOT to develop a sustainable model. Some newspapers have claimed their online properties are profitable but this is a suspect claim since they weren't burdened with the costs borne by the print product. In other words, most local online plays are subsidized by an offline counterpart which the P-I no longer has.
One of my observations from attending the New Business Models for News conference hosted by CUNY and run by Jeff Jarvis (of Buzzmachine & What Would Google Do? fame) and David Cohn (Spot.us) was that virtually all of the new business model discussion was about ways to lower production costs or new ways to fund journalism. While those items help, it's clear the only path to long-term economic viability is to directly address the revenue piece of the equation.
Having spent the last 13 years off and on working on local Internet media, I've made my share of mistakes and have learned many lessons along the way. I've applied those to the site that I own and run (SunValleyOnline.com) and have managed to build a modestly profitable business. I hope the P-I has success so I'm sharing what I believe are the 10 most common mistakes that have prevented most local media sites from having success.
The following are the list of things the P-I, and other online-only newspapers, should avoid that most other local websites haven't avoided:
1. Many local websites assume that since they've been in the business for a long time that they don't need to conduct any research with their customers and non-customers. When we did research, we learned things that changed how we positioned our website to our advertisers as well as it informed our editorial direction. We also gained terrific insights into how much we did/didn't overlap with our competition.
2. While most of us in the local publishing business think our site is available to everyone, the P-I should avoid the one-size-fits-all mentality. It's a mistake to have your sales team start calling on as many advertisers as possible without regard to vertical market, psychographic attributes, etc. A well-honed value proposition for a particular segment is more work but worth it.
3. Until we did research, we had no ability to quantify the value of our audience. Just because one is the market leader (in terms of traffic) you still need to articulate a return-on-investment calculation to a prospect. Just as important, it's important to worry about calibrating expectations with your advertiser about your advertising. Most small businesses need help and can have unrealistic expectations. If you don't set expectations properly, the advertisers will "one and done" -- i.e., they won't renew as they may have had wildly out of proportion expectations.
4. Most newspaper sites clutter up their pages with as many ads as possible. After all, if there are more ads on the page, doesn't that mean more ad revenue? [Hint: No] Many of these sites also use tiny static ads. There has been ample research on ad effectiveness of various types of banner ads. Apply that insight. While banner ads are the mainstream "solution" today, I'm fully convinced that new models of matching buyers and sellers will emerge. Google's AdWords has been the "killer app" for online advertising but there'll be others. Our motto is to test, analyze, refine, test, analyze, refine. I have little doubt that we'll look back 10 years from now and laugh at what we considered to be state of the art.
5. Most media sales organizations aren't tightly defining each step of the sales process with the corresponding likelihood of closing the deal. Too many also don't have a systematic Win/Loss analysis process. While there are thousands of businesses in Seattle, it's a path to failure to think you can just churn through advertisers.
6. Most local media sites simply create a rate card and when it's time to ask for the order, toss it over the transom. The thinking is "A rate card is just a rate card. No need to use it as a strategic selling tool." In reality, it has a lot to do with driving long-term retention of an advertiser as well as creating scarcity during the initial sales process. If they understand the rate card and you remind them on a monthly basis of how you are delivering against your agreement, advertiser retention rates will climb.
7. There's a myth that since advertising is a "relationship" business it's necessary to hire expensive shoe-leather salespeople as that's the way it's always been done. Many don't have a grasp of how one builds a world-class Inside Sales organization and assume that an Inside Sales organization wouldn't work for media sales. Unfortunately, they forget the fact that they are trying to extend beyond the normal 10% penetration of local businesses that newspapers have and that this means less revenue per account. That demands a lower cost model. Just because you are hiring an experienced media sales person with lots of field experience doesn't mean that they'll know how to create a low cost customer acquisition team/model. This is a radically different skill set.
8. Unfortunately when many local media organizations hire their online sales people, they don't worry about making the distinction between "hunters" (i.e., sales people adept at developing new relationships) and "farmers" (i.e., account manager types that like to develop long-term customer relationships). Just because some sales people have an impressive roster of past clients from their offline sales experience it doesn't mean they will know how to build a new book of business.
9. The P-I is fortunate that they have a buyer's market when it comes to hiring but that doesn't automatically mean they'll hire the sales talent with the greatest potential. I've seen growing sales organizations hire unseasoned but high potential sales people and have great success. Having the right job descriptions with accompanying compensation and quota models is critical. It's also vital to have a structured and ongoing process for developing the sales team's sales and marketing skills. The P-I needs to have much more than an initial training curriculum and then "turn them loose" to make some rain. High performing sales teams train all the time.
10. The P-I needs to do more than just provide the sales team with a salesforce automation tool so they can use it to manage their pipelines. It can be a strategic tool for the business on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis not only for the sales team but also the executive team. We often see a tool such as Salesforce.com be under-utilized.
There are many astute and experienced readers and I hope you add your thoughts so we can tap the collective intelligence as no one I know purports to have all the answers in this evolving area. It's an exciting (and challenging) time for those of us in local media. I wish the P-I all the best.
Source: Knight Digital Media
Yet Another Successful Model For Local Journalism
from the it-works-it-works-it-works dept
ALL too often we're accused of being "negative" around here, by showing stories of failing businesses -- but we love the success stories even more. With various newspapers going out of business, and their bosses complaining that there are no business models other than charging readers (something that won't work for almost every newspaper out there), it's always good to see other examples that do work. A few folks have sent in a great writeup by Jonathan Weber, discussing a business model that can work for some types of online journalism. Weber knows because he's actually making it work today via his company, New West, which just so happens to compete in the same market that recently "lost" the Rocky Mountain News.
As a four-year veteran of a journalism-driven local online media start-up, I believe there's a very viable business formula that's actually quite simple, and here today: take advantage of new tools and techniques to cover the news creatively and efficiently; sell sophisticated digital advertising in a sophisticated fashion; keep the Web content free, and charge a high price for content and interaction that are delivered in-person via conferences and events. And don't expect instant results.
And indeed, while Weber notes that his operation is still quite small and certainly isn't a replacement for a full newspaper (yet), it seems to be working for his operation -- with a big part being embracing new communities and new tools to make journalism much more efficient:
The editorial model relies on a combination of professional journalism (currently two full-time and four part-time professionals, as well as a number of freelancers); what we think of as semi-professional journalism (talented writers or subject-matter experts who do something else for their day job); and citizen journalism (bloggers and others who contribute on specific topics, sometimes for small sums of money). We don't have copy editors, but rather copyedit each others' stuff. We're direct and conversational in our style, which is actually easier and quicker once you get used to it, and more appealing to readers than old-style newspaper formulas.
We have a very active photo group on Flickr, and get great feature photography from that. We mostly use Google for fact-checking - not fool-proof, but it works. We use Twitter and Facebook and RSS to push our stories out into the world. We do great video-driven stories when we can, and happily link to others' videos. In fact, we happily link to a lot of stuff, sometimes in combination with our own reporting and sometimes not. We have lively comment threads, which we manage with as light a hand as we can and which are often additive to the stories in addition to being entertaining. We have very active event calendars in our local markets - separate from our main sites but well-integrated, and with a dedicated editor. We're experimenting with a new social media site in Missoula, and we'll see where that goes.
And for all the complaining about how online advertising can't support such a journalistic endeavor, Weber points out that the "common wisdom" is simply wrong:
On the business side, we've found that the conventional wisdom about plunging display ad rates is simply wrong. If you have a quality site, with good editorial that drives meaningful traffic, and you work closely with advertisers and offer them flash ads, video ads, good stats reporting, and the opportunity to help understand a new medium, they will pay a premium. A critical thing we have learned is that selling online advertising is more different from selling print or broadcast than mostly people think. I'd suggest that the difficulties traditional media outlets have in getting good prices for online advertising have to do not with the medium itself, but with the learning curve involved in figuring out how to sell it properly. It took us a couple of years, and we didn't have any legacy issues to deal with.
Everything on the Website is free, but we have about 1,000 people who pay $150 or $300 or $500 a year for their NewWest experience. This experience comes through conferences and events, which have been a major revenue source and an excellent promotional vehicle for our site. The conferences are content-driven - programming a conference is in many ways very similar to editing a magazine - and thus we see it as part-and-parcel of the journalistic mission, not a distracting commercial add-on. If anything, people like conferences even more when they spend so much time interacting via a computer screen. Conference attendees are our loyal subscribers, and they pay a lot for our content.
Yes, it's still an experiment, and it may only work for certain types of reporting -- but it's yet another example of a business model that works -- similar to numerous other ones that we've pointed out. I'm sure that, just as with the recording industry, some folks will continue to insist this is an exception and "it can't work for x, y, or z..." but just like in the recording industry, the more such "exceptions" we post, the more people will realize that these new business models aren't exceptions at all... but the rule.
Source: techdirt
ALL too often we're accused of being "negative" around here, by showing stories of failing businesses -- but we love the success stories even more. With various newspapers going out of business, and their bosses complaining that there are no business models other than charging readers (something that won't work for almost every newspaper out there), it's always good to see other examples that do work. A few folks have sent in a great writeup by Jonathan Weber, discussing a business model that can work for some types of online journalism. Weber knows because he's actually making it work today via his company, New West, which just so happens to compete in the same market that recently "lost" the Rocky Mountain News.
As a four-year veteran of a journalism-driven local online media start-up, I believe there's a very viable business formula that's actually quite simple, and here today: take advantage of new tools and techniques to cover the news creatively and efficiently; sell sophisticated digital advertising in a sophisticated fashion; keep the Web content free, and charge a high price for content and interaction that are delivered in-person via conferences and events. And don't expect instant results.
And indeed, while Weber notes that his operation is still quite small and certainly isn't a replacement for a full newspaper (yet), it seems to be working for his operation -- with a big part being embracing new communities and new tools to make journalism much more efficient:
The editorial model relies on a combination of professional journalism (currently two full-time and four part-time professionals, as well as a number of freelancers); what we think of as semi-professional journalism (talented writers or subject-matter experts who do something else for their day job); and citizen journalism (bloggers and others who contribute on specific topics, sometimes for small sums of money). We don't have copy editors, but rather copyedit each others' stuff. We're direct and conversational in our style, which is actually easier and quicker once you get used to it, and more appealing to readers than old-style newspaper formulas.
We have a very active photo group on Flickr, and get great feature photography from that. We mostly use Google for fact-checking - not fool-proof, but it works. We use Twitter and Facebook and RSS to push our stories out into the world. We do great video-driven stories when we can, and happily link to others' videos. In fact, we happily link to a lot of stuff, sometimes in combination with our own reporting and sometimes not. We have lively comment threads, which we manage with as light a hand as we can and which are often additive to the stories in addition to being entertaining. We have very active event calendars in our local markets - separate from our main sites but well-integrated, and with a dedicated editor. We're experimenting with a new social media site in Missoula, and we'll see where that goes.
And for all the complaining about how online advertising can't support such a journalistic endeavor, Weber points out that the "common wisdom" is simply wrong:
On the business side, we've found that the conventional wisdom about plunging display ad rates is simply wrong. If you have a quality site, with good editorial that drives meaningful traffic, and you work closely with advertisers and offer them flash ads, video ads, good stats reporting, and the opportunity to help understand a new medium, they will pay a premium. A critical thing we have learned is that selling online advertising is more different from selling print or broadcast than mostly people think. I'd suggest that the difficulties traditional media outlets have in getting good prices for online advertising have to do not with the medium itself, but with the learning curve involved in figuring out how to sell it properly. It took us a couple of years, and we didn't have any legacy issues to deal with.
Everything on the Website is free, but we have about 1,000 people who pay $150 or $300 or $500 a year for their NewWest experience. This experience comes through conferences and events, which have been a major revenue source and an excellent promotional vehicle for our site. The conferences are content-driven - programming a conference is in many ways very similar to editing a magazine - and thus we see it as part-and-parcel of the journalistic mission, not a distracting commercial add-on. If anything, people like conferences even more when they spend so much time interacting via a computer screen. Conference attendees are our loyal subscribers, and they pay a lot for our content.
Yes, it's still an experiment, and it may only work for certain types of reporting -- but it's yet another example of a business model that works -- similar to numerous other ones that we've pointed out. I'm sure that, just as with the recording industry, some folks will continue to insist this is an exception and "it can't work for x, y, or z..." but just like in the recording industry, the more such "exceptions" we post, the more people will realize that these new business models aren't exceptions at all... but the rule.
Source: techdirt
Publishers keep faith with online but are they wise to do so?
THE UK's major web publishers are predicting average growth in digital revenues of 16% this year, according to the Association of Online Publishers' 2009 census. Trade bodies are expected to be optimistic but aren't these predictions from the association's 50 members wildly unrealistic?
AOP chair Alison Reay doesn't think so. "In the survey, AOP members, which include Guardian Media Group, IPC Media and the Channel 4, showed a big increase in efforts to make money from the web as 63% also revealed plans to increase investment in their digital business this year."
"Audience first, revenue later" has been the mantra for web businesses for the past decade, but when so many firms are consolidating and focusing on their most reliable, core operations, is it sensible to keep ploughing money into online?
Reay says: "If you take several of those digital revenue streams - e-commerce and subscriptions, for example - they are business models that can be proved. Consumers are more confident about buying online, are spending more time online, buying more flights and insurance online - those deals work and they do generate revenue. What we have seen is that there will be growth in 2009 - especially in video, commercial content, multimedia deals and in sponsorship."
Display ads sold on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis are still the most common charging model, used by 89% of AOP publishers compared with 73% two years ago. Commercial sponsorship rose from 76% to 84% during the same period. Use of cost-per-click, which garners revenue for each ad clicked on, has risen from 43% of publishers last year to half this year.
For the first time publishers were asked whether they charge for access - 39% of them said they used subscriptions in some form, with a recent fashion for dating sites and crosswords. Subscriptions are key because they show publishers moving away from a reliance on advertising, and attempting to diversify their income.
Does this mean that, with the bleak economic situation continuing to pile on the pressure, sites are starting to charge for access to editorial? Though rumours of sites introducing paywalls continue, Reay says there was no indication of that in this survey but adds that "every publisher will consider trying different interest areas, like Fantasy Football, paid-for dating, or crosswords".
Perhaps another surprising trend is that 51% of publishers said their commitment to invest in training - usually one of the first victims of cutbacks - had not changed. A further 40% said they are actually increasing their training budgets while only 9% have reduced them. Publishers had indicated they want to re-skill existing staff rather than recruit new people, said Reay, adding that they are prioritising skills in audience development, advertising sales and technology.
While many journalism training courses are still focused on preparing students for the newspaper, magazine and broadcast industries, the real demand is for new digital editorial and production roles including search engine optimisation, community management and user-experience design.
The trend for integrating offline and online teams in both commercial and editorial is continuing with 65% of publishers planning to combine previously independent teams during the year, the majority in advertising. Reay, who is also digital and multimedia director at the Telegraph Media Group, calls predictions that most national newspapers will fold grossly pessimistic.
But Dan Cryan, Screen Digest's senior analyst, disagrees. "Haven't they noticed there's an advertising recession going on? Of course you have to diversify into digital - you'd be mad not to. But the problem with subscriptions for things like dating is that someone will come along and offer the same service for free. Look what happened with Friends Reunited."
Source: guardian.co.uk
AOP chair Alison Reay doesn't think so. "In the survey, AOP members, which include Guardian Media Group, IPC Media and the Channel 4, showed a big increase in efforts to make money from the web as 63% also revealed plans to increase investment in their digital business this year."
"Audience first, revenue later" has been the mantra for web businesses for the past decade, but when so many firms are consolidating and focusing on their most reliable, core operations, is it sensible to keep ploughing money into online?
Reay says: "If you take several of those digital revenue streams - e-commerce and subscriptions, for example - they are business models that can be proved. Consumers are more confident about buying online, are spending more time online, buying more flights and insurance online - those deals work and they do generate revenue. What we have seen is that there will be growth in 2009 - especially in video, commercial content, multimedia deals and in sponsorship."
Display ads sold on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis are still the most common charging model, used by 89% of AOP publishers compared with 73% two years ago. Commercial sponsorship rose from 76% to 84% during the same period. Use of cost-per-click, which garners revenue for each ad clicked on, has risen from 43% of publishers last year to half this year.
For the first time publishers were asked whether they charge for access - 39% of them said they used subscriptions in some form, with a recent fashion for dating sites and crosswords. Subscriptions are key because they show publishers moving away from a reliance on advertising, and attempting to diversify their income.
Does this mean that, with the bleak economic situation continuing to pile on the pressure, sites are starting to charge for access to editorial? Though rumours of sites introducing paywalls continue, Reay says there was no indication of that in this survey but adds that "every publisher will consider trying different interest areas, like Fantasy Football, paid-for dating, or crosswords".
Perhaps another surprising trend is that 51% of publishers said their commitment to invest in training - usually one of the first victims of cutbacks - had not changed. A further 40% said they are actually increasing their training budgets while only 9% have reduced them. Publishers had indicated they want to re-skill existing staff rather than recruit new people, said Reay, adding that they are prioritising skills in audience development, advertising sales and technology.
While many journalism training courses are still focused on preparing students for the newspaper, magazine and broadcast industries, the real demand is for new digital editorial and production roles including search engine optimisation, community management and user-experience design.
The trend for integrating offline and online teams in both commercial and editorial is continuing with 65% of publishers planning to combine previously independent teams during the year, the majority in advertising. Reay, who is also digital and multimedia director at the Telegraph Media Group, calls predictions that most national newspapers will fold grossly pessimistic.
But Dan Cryan, Screen Digest's senior analyst, disagrees. "Haven't they noticed there's an advertising recession going on? Of course you have to diversify into digital - you'd be mad not to. But the problem with subscriptions for things like dating is that someone will come along and offer the same service for free. Look what happened with Friends Reunited."
Source: guardian.co.uk
IHT Joins Forces with the NYT on the Web and Reveals New-Look Newspaper
The two high-quality news organizations combine to launch a new global news, business, sports and style Web site
Iconic world newspaper gets a bold redesign to enhance its international personality and broaden its contemporary appeal
PARIS: The International Herald Tribune (IHT), the global edition of The New York Times, today launched two major product innovations for its worldwide audience of digital and newspaper readers.
A new online Global Edition at global.nytimes.com combines the international voice of the IHT with the worldwide breadth of reporting of The Times and the digital expertise of NYTimes.com. It is edited in New York, Paris and Hong Kong to provide users with a 24/7 flow of geopolitical, business (with Reuters), sports and style, news and commentary from a distinctly global perspective.
Starting today, IHT.com users are automatically redirected to global.nytimes.com and users of NYTimes.com can choose to set the Global Edition as their home page. They can also sign up for a new email service: Today’s Headlines Global Edition, published twice daily for European and Asian morning delivery.
Simultaneously, the IHT unveiled a fresh new look for its newspaper. The result of a year-long collaboration with the award-winning newspaper design team at The New York Times, the front-to-back redesign gives more definition to the 122-year-old paper’s journalistic strengths and emphasizes its international personality.
Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, publisher of the IHT, said: “Together with The Times, we are creating a powerhouse for high quality global news – it is thanks to closer integration with New York that has made the dynamic new Global Edition online a round-the-clock reality, and it is thanks to this that we have such a clear and sparkling new design for our newspaper. Today the IHT is demonstrating its steadfast commitment to steering its international readers through the momentous events of a fast-changing world, serving readers and advertisers with creativity and vision.”
Clearer headings, improved page navigation, more anchored positions, better designed briefs columns and pointers to Web articles, as well as greater emphasis on photography all serve to make the new-look IHT newspaper easier to navigate, more visually arresting and helpful in directing readers to additional content at global.nytimes.com. Typographically, the IHT has also introduced a cleaner nameplate that gives “international” more prominence and a new Cheltenham typeface to lend contrast and openness throughout.
Martin Gottlieb, editor, global edition said ”Redesigning the newspaper and reconfiguring our global online presence at the same time created significant opportunities for us journalistically: Working together with The New York Times, we have been able to look at the overall balance and direction of our coverage afresh. By consolidating Web operations and improving design processes, we are freeing up editorial energies to focus on delivering the accurate reporting, thought-provoking writing and sharp analysis that our international readers need now more than ever.”
In the new design, the IHT’s Business section which is produced in collaboration with Reuters, is given added prominence by being anchored at the back of the newspaper Monday through Friday, creating a new business-oriented environment that showcases the popular Breaking Views feature and columns by authoritative, analytical writers like Andrew Ross Sorkin and Floyd Norris. For the weekend edition, in response to reader feedback, a new section called Weekend Arts full of interviews, reviews and lifestyle reporting draws together the prized arts coverage of The Times with distinguished IHT voices, such as art critic Souren Melikian, to create a stimulating weekend read.
Jean Christophe Demarta, international advertising director for The New York Times Media Group, said: “The new online Global Edition and the new-look newspaper have generated a wealth of new opportunities for advertisers looking to reach our influential, international audience. From a range of advanced user targeting options on global.nytimes.com to new larger premium advertising positions on the superbly designed front and back pages of the IHT – this double launch really is fantastic news for The New York Times Media Group’s international advertisers.”
About the International Herald Tribune (global.nytimes.com)
The International Herald Tribune (IHT) is the premier international newspaper for opinion leaders and decision-makers around the globe. It combines the extensive resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times, is printed at 35 sites throughout the world and is for sale in more than 180 countries. Based in Paris since 1887, the IHT is owned by The New York Times Company. For more information about the IHT visit ihtinfo.com
About The New York Times Media Group
The New York Times Media Group includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, NYTimes.com and global.nytimes.com and WQXR-FM. The group’s global advertising sales network is headquartered in New York with regional offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.
About The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company, a leading media company with 2008 revenues of $2.9 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 16 other daily newspapers, WQXR-FM and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company’s core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.
Source: IHT
Iconic world newspaper gets a bold redesign to enhance its international personality and broaden its contemporary appeal
PARIS: The International Herald Tribune (IHT), the global edition of The New York Times, today launched two major product innovations for its worldwide audience of digital and newspaper readers.
A new online Global Edition at global.nytimes.com combines the international voice of the IHT with the worldwide breadth of reporting of The Times and the digital expertise of NYTimes.com. It is edited in New York, Paris and Hong Kong to provide users with a 24/7 flow of geopolitical, business (with Reuters), sports and style, news and commentary from a distinctly global perspective.
Starting today, IHT.com users are automatically redirected to global.nytimes.com and users of NYTimes.com can choose to set the Global Edition as their home page. They can also sign up for a new email service: Today’s Headlines Global Edition, published twice daily for European and Asian morning delivery.
Simultaneously, the IHT unveiled a fresh new look for its newspaper. The result of a year-long collaboration with the award-winning newspaper design team at The New York Times, the front-to-back redesign gives more definition to the 122-year-old paper’s journalistic strengths and emphasizes its international personality.
Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, publisher of the IHT, said: “Together with The Times, we are creating a powerhouse for high quality global news – it is thanks to closer integration with New York that has made the dynamic new Global Edition online a round-the-clock reality, and it is thanks to this that we have such a clear and sparkling new design for our newspaper. Today the IHT is demonstrating its steadfast commitment to steering its international readers through the momentous events of a fast-changing world, serving readers and advertisers with creativity and vision.”
Clearer headings, improved page navigation, more anchored positions, better designed briefs columns and pointers to Web articles, as well as greater emphasis on photography all serve to make the new-look IHT newspaper easier to navigate, more visually arresting and helpful in directing readers to additional content at global.nytimes.com. Typographically, the IHT has also introduced a cleaner nameplate that gives “international” more prominence and a new Cheltenham typeface to lend contrast and openness throughout.
Martin Gottlieb, editor, global edition said ”Redesigning the newspaper and reconfiguring our global online presence at the same time created significant opportunities for us journalistically: Working together with The New York Times, we have been able to look at the overall balance and direction of our coverage afresh. By consolidating Web operations and improving design processes, we are freeing up editorial energies to focus on delivering the accurate reporting, thought-provoking writing and sharp analysis that our international readers need now more than ever.”
In the new design, the IHT’s Business section which is produced in collaboration with Reuters, is given added prominence by being anchored at the back of the newspaper Monday through Friday, creating a new business-oriented environment that showcases the popular Breaking Views feature and columns by authoritative, analytical writers like Andrew Ross Sorkin and Floyd Norris. For the weekend edition, in response to reader feedback, a new section called Weekend Arts full of interviews, reviews and lifestyle reporting draws together the prized arts coverage of The Times with distinguished IHT voices, such as art critic Souren Melikian, to create a stimulating weekend read.
Jean Christophe Demarta, international advertising director for The New York Times Media Group, said: “The new online Global Edition and the new-look newspaper have generated a wealth of new opportunities for advertisers looking to reach our influential, international audience. From a range of advanced user targeting options on global.nytimes.com to new larger premium advertising positions on the superbly designed front and back pages of the IHT – this double launch really is fantastic news for The New York Times Media Group’s international advertisers.”
About the International Herald Tribune (global.nytimes.com)
The International Herald Tribune (IHT) is the premier international newspaper for opinion leaders and decision-makers around the globe. It combines the extensive resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times, is printed at 35 sites throughout the world and is for sale in more than 180 countries. Based in Paris since 1887, the IHT is owned by The New York Times Company. For more information about the IHT visit ihtinfo.com
About The New York Times Media Group
The New York Times Media Group includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, NYTimes.com and global.nytimes.com and WQXR-FM. The group’s global advertising sales network is headquartered in New York with regional offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.
About The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company, a leading media company with 2008 revenues of $2.9 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 16 other daily newspapers, WQXR-FM and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company’s core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.
Source: IHT
European Newspapers Find Creative Ways to Thrive in the Internet Age
PARIS: As the death toll in the American newspaper industry mounted this month, the German publisher Axel Springer, which owns Bild, the biggest newspaper in Europe, reported the highest profit in its 62-year history.
At Springer’s headquarters in Berlin, there has been no desperate talk of how to survive the recession and the digital revolution. Instead, Mathias Döpfner, Springer’s chief executive, said he was looking for opportunities to expand, scouting around for acquisitions in Germany, Eastern Europe and maybe — in what would be a first for the company — the United States.
“I don’t believe in the end of journalism,” Mr. Döpfner said. “On the contrary, I think the crisis can have a positive impact. The number of players will diminish, but the strong players may be stabler after the crisis.”
In much of the world, American newspapers are seen as journalism’s gold standard. But the American newspaper’s business model appears to be broken. While much of Europe faces many of the same problems, a few newspaper publishers have found innovative ways not only to survive, but thrive in the face of the recession and the Internet.
Few European publishers performed as well as Axel Springer last year, and even it has warned that 2009 will be much harder as recession takes its toll. In some European countries, newspapers are in worse shape than in the United States. In France, several papers are kept alive by public subsidies. In the ultracompetitive British market, national papers struggle to make money and local newspapers are disappearing at an accelerating rate.
But there are signs of journalistic life in Europe. Circulation is falling more slowly than in the United States. Most papers have been less affected by the recession than their American counterparts because they rely on readers more than on advertisers, who tend to be more fickle.
Though no one has found a magic bullet, some European publishers have found ways to meet the challenges. At Schibsted, an Oslo-based publisher, online activities — including newspapers, classified advertising sites and other pursuits — deliver about a quarter of the company’s revenue and the vast majority of its profit.
The star performer online is VG Nett, a Web site loosely affiliated with Verdens Gang, a tabloid newspaper. VG Nett has a profit margin of more than 30 percent and rivals Google as the most popular Web site in Norway.
VG Nett, like most newspaper Web sites, generates most of its revenue from advertising, but is starting to raise money from users. About 150,000 people pay up to 599 crowns, or nearly $90, a year for a weight-loss club. VG Nett recently started charging up to 780 crowns a year for live streams of soccer matches. And a social network connected with VG Nett charges users to upgrade their profiles. Access to news, however, remains free.
A business that has lost more than a quarter of its global sales over the last decade might not seem like the best example to follow. But alongside the wreckage left by digital piracy, new business models are emerging in the music industry — with Europe in the vanguard.
Few Europeans willing to pay for music directly, through services like iTunes, so the industry is instead bundling music costs into a broadband subscription, like basic cable channels do in the United States.
The Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, skeptical of applying micropayments to newspapers, has suggested providing access to newspaper Web sites for a fee paid at the Internet service provider level. For such models to succeed, newspapers would have to work together.
A group of newspapers in the French-speaking part of Belgium have shown the possibilities and the limitations of cooperating when faced with Google, which some see as a common enemy.
Two years ago, under the banner of their trade organization, Copiepresse, the papers won a ruling in a Belgian court requiring Google to remove their content from its Google News service, which summarizes newspaper articles and provides links to their Web sites. The Belgian papers argued that Google News had violated their copyrights; an appeal is pending.
When Google wanted to expand Google News to Denmark about two years ago, lawyers for Danish publishers wrote to the company, telling them they could not do so without permission.
This has not helped newspapers earn money online, but Margaret Boribon, secretary general of Copiepresse, said, “the main issue for us is not having giants killing us.”
Axel Springer generates 14 percent of its revenue online, more than most American newspapers, even though the markets in which it operates — primarily Germany and Eastern Europe — are less digitally developed than the United States.
One reason, Mr. Döpfner said, is that Axel Springer has dared to compete with itself. Instead of trying to protect existing publications, it acquired or created new ones, some of which distribute the same content to different audiences.
At one newsroom in Berlin, for example, journalists produce content for six publications: the national newspaper Die Welt, its Sunday edition and a tabloid version aimed at younger readers; a local paper called Berliner Morgenpost, and two Web sites.
Though advertising has slumped in Germany, Axel Springer has been able to offset the shortfall by raising the price of publications like Bild, which sells more than three million copies. Now Axel Springer is looking for “undervalued assets” to buy.
Mr. Döpfner said the company would even have a look in the United States “if a meaningful position arises in a significant market.”
Source: nytimes.com
At Springer’s headquarters in Berlin, there has been no desperate talk of how to survive the recession and the digital revolution. Instead, Mathias Döpfner, Springer’s chief executive, said he was looking for opportunities to expand, scouting around for acquisitions in Germany, Eastern Europe and maybe — in what would be a first for the company — the United States.
“I don’t believe in the end of journalism,” Mr. Döpfner said. “On the contrary, I think the crisis can have a positive impact. The number of players will diminish, but the strong players may be stabler after the crisis.”
In much of the world, American newspapers are seen as journalism’s gold standard. But the American newspaper’s business model appears to be broken. While much of Europe faces many of the same problems, a few newspaper publishers have found innovative ways not only to survive, but thrive in the face of the recession and the Internet.
Few European publishers performed as well as Axel Springer last year, and even it has warned that 2009 will be much harder as recession takes its toll. In some European countries, newspapers are in worse shape than in the United States. In France, several papers are kept alive by public subsidies. In the ultracompetitive British market, national papers struggle to make money and local newspapers are disappearing at an accelerating rate.
But there are signs of journalistic life in Europe. Circulation is falling more slowly than in the United States. Most papers have been less affected by the recession than their American counterparts because they rely on readers more than on advertisers, who tend to be more fickle.
Though no one has found a magic bullet, some European publishers have found ways to meet the challenges. At Schibsted, an Oslo-based publisher, online activities — including newspapers, classified advertising sites and other pursuits — deliver about a quarter of the company’s revenue and the vast majority of its profit.
The star performer online is VG Nett, a Web site loosely affiliated with Verdens Gang, a tabloid newspaper. VG Nett has a profit margin of more than 30 percent and rivals Google as the most popular Web site in Norway.
VG Nett, like most newspaper Web sites, generates most of its revenue from advertising, but is starting to raise money from users. About 150,000 people pay up to 599 crowns, or nearly $90, a year for a weight-loss club. VG Nett recently started charging up to 780 crowns a year for live streams of soccer matches. And a social network connected with VG Nett charges users to upgrade their profiles. Access to news, however, remains free.
A business that has lost more than a quarter of its global sales over the last decade might not seem like the best example to follow. But alongside the wreckage left by digital piracy, new business models are emerging in the music industry — with Europe in the vanguard.
Few Europeans willing to pay for music directly, through services like iTunes, so the industry is instead bundling music costs into a broadband subscription, like basic cable channels do in the United States.
The Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, skeptical of applying micropayments to newspapers, has suggested providing access to newspaper Web sites for a fee paid at the Internet service provider level. For such models to succeed, newspapers would have to work together.
A group of newspapers in the French-speaking part of Belgium have shown the possibilities and the limitations of cooperating when faced with Google, which some see as a common enemy.
Two years ago, under the banner of their trade organization, Copiepresse, the papers won a ruling in a Belgian court requiring Google to remove their content from its Google News service, which summarizes newspaper articles and provides links to their Web sites. The Belgian papers argued that Google News had violated their copyrights; an appeal is pending.
When Google wanted to expand Google News to Denmark about two years ago, lawyers for Danish publishers wrote to the company, telling them they could not do so without permission.
This has not helped newspapers earn money online, but Margaret Boribon, secretary general of Copiepresse, said, “the main issue for us is not having giants killing us.”
Axel Springer generates 14 percent of its revenue online, more than most American newspapers, even though the markets in which it operates — primarily Germany and Eastern Europe — are less digitally developed than the United States.
One reason, Mr. Döpfner said, is that Axel Springer has dared to compete with itself. Instead of trying to protect existing publications, it acquired or created new ones, some of which distribute the same content to different audiences.
At one newsroom in Berlin, for example, journalists produce content for six publications: the national newspaper Die Welt, its Sunday edition and a tabloid version aimed at younger readers; a local paper called Berliner Morgenpost, and two Web sites.
Though advertising has slumped in Germany, Axel Springer has been able to offset the shortfall by raising the price of publications like Bild, which sells more than three million copies. Now Axel Springer is looking for “undervalued assets” to buy.
Mr. Döpfner said the company would even have a look in the United States “if a meaningful position arises in a significant market.”
Source: nytimes.com
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