The new adventures of old media
Ever stare in wonder when you see a strong platform or solid business that fails to read the signs on the wall? Rather than recognize and adapt, they at best pay lip service to the issue and simply shoehorn in yesterday’s business models into today’s evolving marketplace. These thoughts and others always cross my mind when I think of the newspaper industry.
According to the Newspaper Association of America, in 2009 Newspaper websites taken as a whole attracted more than 74 million monthly unique visitors quarterly – roughly a third of all Internet users. Visitors to these sites generated more than 3.5 billion page views and spent 2.7 billion minutes browsing over approximately 596 million sessions quarterly.
And yet, with all of this traffic, the revenues these websites generate are unable to sustain them as a stand-alone business and they continue to be fed from their older sibling, what I call the “ink and paper” side of the house. This is the complete inverse of what their owners envisioned when they finally embraced the Internet as a distribution medium in order to help offset the revenue erosion the print business continues to face.
Is it any wonder then that the newspaper industry continues to bemoan the online model?
The problem here is that the newspaper industry is simply using the web to replace the ink and paper its business model was built upon. What they miss is that the Internet is a much more dynamic medium, which they are not tapping to its fullest potential and therefore not engaging in practices that can have an accretive effect on their bottom line.
According to a report by TargetCast last year, 60% of consumers say newspapers need to change the most to stay relevant, compared to 30% for magazines and 20% for radio. TV and Internet both tie at 10% in the eyes of consumers.
Nevertheless, the influence the newspaper industry has on consumers is staggering given its legacy of breaking news and uncovering stories of historic proportion.
So what can the newspaper industry do to continue its amazing legacy and leverage the digital space to provide the same impact to users and advertisers as its ink and paper business once did? Here are a few of my suggestions:
– Beware the lure of the pay wall. With all the talk of paid versus non-paid, it’s easy for people to think that charging a fee for online access as the solution to the revenue problems of the newspaper industry. However, the fact is the genie is out of the bottle. 72% of consumers believe that sourcing a newspaper online should be free and they are not willing to pay for an online subscription. That’s not to say that the pay model doesn’t have its place, but it’s important to understand the changing consumer patters and adapt your business model accordingly.
– Think beyond the banner ad. Traditional online advertising has taken a tremendous beating the past few years with advertisers paying less and less for traditional banner, skyscraper and other similar advertisements. This is due primarily to an over-supply in the market, but also the fact that these types of creative lack engagement and are easily looked over by online consumers. Different creative such as rich media and video advertising have been shown to have greater engagement, higher efficacy and are able to generate significantly higher CPM’s for online web properties.
– Digital is more than online. Digital initiatives for the newspaper industry should extend beyond the web and onto smart phone devices (think iPhone, Android and Zune) and iTV platforms such as Yahoo’s ConnectedTV platform as a means to go where the audience is. A cross platform strategy is essential in today’s environment, as consumers want access to their information whenever and wherever they happen to be.
– Embrace hyper-local. Hyper-local speaks to the growing consumer demand for a uniquely personalization experience. People want to be connected to those around them, and the addition of hyper-local local reporting is an increasing trend that is gaining viewership and market share. Newspapers ignore this sub-segment at their peril.
– Integrate contextually relevant video. Clearly an area that I’m passionate about. The ability to dynamically link contextually relevant video content to print articles leads to higher engagement by delivering more perspective on a given topic, not to mention associating the newspaper with leading video news organizations such as those carried by 1CAST, including BBC Worldwide, CNBC, Fox, Reuters, Agence-France Press and others. Newspapers must recognize that consumers want access to multiple angles on any given story in a highly engaging manner. If a picture tells a thousand words, then video will tell a million more.
The newspaper industry is an important part of our democratic process and has a responsibility as part of the Fourth Estate to continue to “impart news of note and commentary of interest to the citizenry.” However, if it doesn’t redefine itself and adapt its business models to meet new consumer demands, it risks disintermediation, or worst – extinction.
This is one of the key reasons we created the 1CAST Network – to help the newspaper industry bring a compelling platform, capable of engaging its readers with print and video news and benefit from the higher value advertising that becomes available as a result. Our embeddable video platform that brings together the global leaders in video news publishing is a simple, low cost solution to help bring engagement and profitability to the online efforts of this vastly important industry.
