50x current information = lots more disruption
If you’re involved in traditional media and your mind wasn’t boggled by last month’s IDC report, “The Digital Universe in 2020,” it must be that you didn’t see it.
So let’s take a look, and then let’s consider the implications.
Each year, IDC — a division of EMC — attempts to estimate the amount of digital data created, replicated and consumed that year, and to project the growth likely in the “digital universe” by the end of the decade. Read the rest of this entry
Five game-changers for the local media business model
It was an interesting assignment: Forecast the next three years’ revenues and cash flows based on current activities, then come up “game-changers” that could produce significantly better results.
At Morris Publishing Group — 12 daily newspapers and dozens of digital and non-daily properties — we came up with five that I’ll share here. Read the rest of this entry
Doubling down on digital at Morris — Part II
In Part I, I described how Morris Publishing Group came to be committed to creating a separate digital sales division in our markets. But at that point, we still had big questions. Exactly what would we sell, and how would we sell it?
To figure out the answers, Read the rest of this entry
Doubling down on digital at Morris — Part I
You’ve probably heard this before: If you want to have a shot at holding and gaining digital market share in your local market, you need a separate digital sales force.
But “separate” can have a wide range of meanings. Read the rest of this entry
TV is being disrupted, too — stay tuned
Back when I was working on the Newspaper Next project, around 2006, I had one of my infrequent exchanges with Ava Ehrlich, a former J-school classmate at Northwestern. She’s been working in TV for years in St. Louis.
When I described the work I was doing in the N2 project, there was a note of condolence in her response. Read the rest of this entry
Creating audience leadership at Morris
It used to be so simple. Now it’s so complicated.
The days are gone when hiring a few reporters and editors and reporting the news of your town virtually guaranteed you healthy advertising revenues and a handsomely profitable business.
Back then, we didn’t talk about “content” or “audience.” We just reported the news, and people showed up in droves to get it. Businesses paid us to put their ads alongside the news, and people paid us to print their “car for sale” ads somewhere in the back section. And we enjoyed profit margins that other businesses could barely imagine.
It was nice.
These days, it’s not so nice. We’re still doing the news, Read the rest of this entry
Here comes the next wave of disruption: hyper-targeting
This may be the most important thing I have to say this year:
The next wave of disruption for newspaper companies is bearing down on us right now, and it will be a doozy. Read the rest of this entry
Magazines: Far different digital disruptions
As a newspaper guy coping with massive disruption in my industry, I hadn’t thought too hard about how the digital revolution was affecting the other big print media, magazines and books. With the troubles we’ve got, who needs more?
Now, however, I’m looking more closely at those other two major print media, and I’m amazed at how different the impact of digital is. Read the rest of this entry
Part I: The Mass Media bubble
Newspaper companies have fallen farther and faster in the last six years than anyone could have imagined.
Beginning with the third quarter of 2006, newspapers now have seen 22 consecutive quarters of declines in print ad revenues – a loss of 57 percent. And there’s no end in sight, as we’re seeing continued declines in 2012. Most analysts also see continued declines in the years beyond.
The recession was a big part of this, but for most of the U.S. economy, it ended in the summer of 2009 – nearly three years ago – with a return to weak growth. Yet newspaper ad revenues continued to plunge at double-digit rates in 2009 and 2010, easing to single-digit declines in 2011 with few signs of relief in 2012.
This is much more than a recession. What’s happening to the newspaper business, and why? Read the rest of this entry
Part II — The end of the Mass Media Era
(Part I described the “Mass Media Era” as a 150-year bubble that produced an incredibly profitable mass media business model — one that is now breaking down.)
Ask most people why newspapers have fallen so far in the last few years, and they’ll say, “The Internet.” And they’ll be right, in a simplistic sort of way.
But let’s look closer. What’s really happening is that the lopsided old “mass media” information system — a few providers sending limited amounts of information to huge audiences — is now being engulfed and dwarfed by an information system that is truly “mass” on both ends — sending and receiving.
Call it the Internet, but it’s really this: Read the rest of this entry
MediaReset 