Ten
years ago, in a moment of characteristic prescience, the Economist asked, “Who Killed Newspapers?” The
year was 2006, and already, the Internet posed an existential challenge to an
industry that only several decades earlier seemed unassailable. While the
question was then, and remains, relevant to the broader world of journalism, the Economist observed
that “of all the ‘old’ media, newspapers have the most to lose from the
internet.”
Their forecast proved
right: according to the Pew Research Center, between March 2006 and September
2014, daily newspaper circulation in the United States declined in every
six-month interval but one. Meanwhile, the number of newsroom jobs has
fallen by 33 percent and daily and weekly newspapers have shuttered their doors
with increasing frequency. The story isn’t particular to the U.S. or just
to newspapers. In the UK, the Independent, a venerable public institution, will
end its print run next month, while the BBC recently announced that it will cut 1,000 jobs and engage
in a whole scale restructuring, as growing adoption of mobile and desktop
streaming has accelerated a decline in television ownership (and, consequently,
household television license fees that fund the Beeb).
At first glance, it
would seem that technology – or, more specifically, the Internet – is killing
journalism. But the truth is far more complicated.
For one, the digital
revolution has inspired many organizations including NPR, The Atlantic and the New York Times to experiment with new formats,
including data visualizations, podcasts, and virtual reality. The result
has arguably been greater audience engagement and a richer diversity of news
and commentary. The rise of new digital-only outlets like Buzzfeed, Vox
and Mashable also suggests that the Internet may be a creator rather than a
destroyer of journalism. Finally, many outlets – including digital innovators
like the Guardian and the New York Times – are experiencing a steady rise
in overall readership, subscriptions and digital revenue. The problem isn’t
that the Internet is killing journalism, per se, but rather, that it’s killing
print advertising. New gains in digital revenue aren’t enough to offset losses
associated with the production and delivery of print editions, and many outlets
haven’t figured out how to reorganize their business models quickly enough.
None of this is to
say that we should just wait to see how the landscape shapes up. As with any
major economic or technological shift, digital disruption will produce winners
and losers. It’s in everyone’s interest that we emerge with more of the former
and fewer of the latter. Here are three considerations that all outlets should
consider.
Disaggregation and Distribution
Twenty years ago, if
you were only interested in the sports section, you still needed to purchase an
entire newspaper; if you only wanted to watch the weather and traffic, you
still needed to tune into the local broadcast and wait for those segments to
appear. Today, the Internet has disaggregated the component parts of
newspapers, magazines and broadcasts and made them available on an a la carte basis. There’s some advantage in
this arrangement, as regional journalists now enjoy potential national or
global reach. But there’s also great risk. To understand the tradeoff, it’s
helpful to consider an earlier example.
Approximately ten
years ago, the music industry began the same pattern of disaggregation and
distribution. Before the advent of iTunes, consumers needed to buy an
entire album to own just one hit song. Now, it’s possible to purchase “American
Pie,” the single, without having to buy all of those other Don McClean numbers
that I can’t name off the top of my head.
Not only did the new
model disaggregate the LP; it also turned distribution of sound recordings over
to digital channels like Apple and Amazon – and after that, to streaming
services. The result has been a steep decline in overall
recording revenue, as well as new licensing arrangements that sharply reduced royalties for songwriters. Today, musicians earn
the lion’s share of their profits through touring and merchandising. For
consumers, the immediate payoff may seem good, but in the long term,
disaggregation and changing patterns of distribution will distort the market.
Journalists today
face the same tradeoff. Their content has already been disaggregated. Now,
platforms like Facebook and Google – known within the Internet industry as
“walled gardens” – are extending a Faustian bargain: through mechanisms like
Instant Articles and Google News, publishers can enjoy broader distribution and
fresh opportunities to monetize content. But the devil is in the
details. By forfeiting distribution to a handful of Silicon Valley
behemoths, outlets stand to weaken the direct bond that readers or listeners
might enjoy with their webpages or apps and lock themselves into
revenue-sharing models that might not always benefit them.
Publishers can’t
reverse the process of disaggregation; nor, in some ways, should they want
to. But it is imperative that they develop new strategies to control
their distribution channels, to the largest extent possible.
If digital publishers
want to maintain optionality and negotiating power vis-Ã -vis the walled gardens,
they need to double down on improving user experience.
The advent of digital
advertising led many publishers to load pages with as many ad impressions as
possible in a perfectly understandable effort to compensate for the swift and
disproportionate decline in print advertising revenue. But consumers are
revolting. Some of the most commonly cited motivations behind ad blocking
relate to user experience. When pages are overloaded with intrusive
pop-up, interstitial or in-banner video ads, they tend to annoy potential
audience members. They also consume valuable data plan dollars, a key point of
exasperation on the part of end users.
As my colleague, Tom
Shields – one of the original inventors of digital ad serving – recently
argued: sometimes, less is more. Publishers should focus on fewer,
higher-quality ad units. Advertisers are willing to pay more money for
viewable ads, and the industry is creating ways to measure and verify
viewability. If journalism loses the ad blocking game, great outlets may have
nowhere left to go but to the walled gardens. That outcome is one that we
should endeavor to avoid.
Differentiation and Data
Journalists and
publishers should concentrate on what they excel at: producing great reporting,
storytelling, analysis and commentary; improving page and app layouts;
innovating with new formats like VR and podcasts; forging strategic
partnerships with other actors inside and outside of the industry; and growing
audience affinity. These are the key places where they can differentiate their
brands. Leave the technology of monetization to a trusted, outside
partner. Those of us in that line of business don’t know how to write a
Pulitzer Prize-winning article, but we do know how to help you pay for it.
To free up their
focus on strategic differentiation, publishers need to seize back control of
their data. Simply put, advertisers will gladly pay for precision, verification
and performance. Recently, many outlets have joined forces to create regional
and national coalitions that partner with advertising technology providers and leverage collective scale and
audience data. A prime example of this model is the Local Media Consortium,
which claims over 1,600 member newspapers and broadcast outlets across the
United States. Rather than turn their content and data over to a
third-party distribution platform, they are using their assets for independent
monetization; in turn, they are able to invest more money in sustaining quality
journalism.
Speaking strictly for
myself, I’m bullish on the future of independent journalism. Technology
is a disruptor, but it need not be a destroyer. If great outlets learn
how to reinvent themselves for a digital future, they can emerge on the other
side of the tunnel more vibrant, strong and diverse.
Credit: www.forbes.com
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