Internet advertising is not print advertising – blatantly obvious though this statement is, it packs more punch then its simple surface semantic suggests. Internet advertising and print advertising are different beasts, but it does not appear that this differential is making much of an impact on the gravity of what is occurring for the Media industries – Newspapers, Television and Film.
Internet and Print advertising do not share the same goals or operational models and this is a big problem for these industries – big because it will change the face of what we know as ‘the media’ in the future. With the decline in Newspapers, the decline of TV viewership and growing struggles in the Film industries – media entities are looking to Online as a way forward – and it will be – just not in the way they would like it to be. A business-as-usual approach will not carry as they shift across to this medium. The onset of the problems this presents for media entities is spread in urgency – with Newspapers closest to the gauntlet – however TV and Film are not far behind.
It needs to be understood – and accepted – that for all the discussion about Online Ad Revenue trying to increase and match traditional Print Revenue – guess what? It won’t – not in time for the changes that are occurring.These two advertising revenue models are different beasts and so the News media – and especially Newspapers – are going to have to come to terms with this difference. This lack of volume in the revenue return for Online is going to force same drastic changes. News entities will have to adopt, by force or embrace, Internet advertising as their only core revenue stream and this will trigger the onset of a massive restructuring for how they do both business and news production.
It is going to force the media industry to fracture into multiple layers for news-type gathering – each layer will have big players and little players. What are these layers? They are different operational spaces or ‘news-types’ – how these are gathered and disseminated will change. Examples of these news-types are: Hyperlocal, Regional, National, Global, Opinion etc
Internet advertising in the later future may meet or grow beyond the value indexes of Print Revenue, but I use the word ‘later’ deliberately; for in the now, its lack of equivalency in volume will dramatically change the landscape of how news entities operate
Under this framework – the operation structural and news gathering approach of the smaller, city and regional players will have to dramatically change. The smaller players will have to embrace new paradigms that will fly-in-the-face of their high-church position on news coverage and delivery; these include:
Web syndication – moving to complete usage of this type of syndication; this means shifting editorial decisions onto managing syndicated and internet content; not covering news or events when it can be sourced elsewhere; the embracing of the Vanilla News paradigm. Editorial decisions are still relevant, however they need to shift a level to editing of the range of syndicated and internet content available. This approach is all about recrafting content – vanilla content – into local shapes and angles that work for their immediate audience.
Hyperlocal focus – a stronger focus on producing Hyperlocal content; this would mean using smaller teams of journalists – for some places or coverage just one person; to cover off the local events and happenings often and frequently. The size of teams for this sort of stuff is not important – effectively covering of Hyperlocal events is. Most media entities – especially Newspapers – need to accept they aren’t the only voice for their city, state or nation and more importantly a range of new uber-news players are coming onto the scene who will dominate the coverage and production of news in the years to come – these ‘uber-syndicators’ will provide the infrastructure, source and channels for news gathering and transport – the smaller players will just become service entities accessing these news-information corridors and shaping and recrafting this content for their own use. Hyperlocal will be a new battleground for the smaller players as the big news is all covered off by the uber-syndicators.
Video, video, video – embrace online video and gather it from everywhere; this includes using online Video content – YouTube, Vimeo, etc for supporting news stories or telling them; providing better mechanisms for getting UGC video from your audience and building partnerships with other news entities and video sources to provide video ad-infintum. If content is king – video is the god of content. Video consumption online is increasing rapidly – it will be the dominate form of news consumption within the next 2 years. Our societies have moved to a visual dominance and so video is the ultimate form of this dominance – as broadband infrastructure and delivery expand and the costs of it decrease, video consumption will only scale in usage.
Internet advertising in the later future may meet or grow beyond the value indexes of Print Revenue, but I use the word ‘later’ deliberately; for in the now, its lack of equivalency in volume will dramatically change the landscape of how news entities operate: What this will lead to? A mature version of what we see now in it’s embryonic stages; a world where news is transferable and transactions of it take on persona’s which meet the expectations of that online entities audience. This model, which provides a landscape for new entities to re-craft vanilla news forms into different angles will provide a new face for News gathering and a new method for dissemination of the daily news.
Posted by J.M. Attix
Further Reading:
Urgent Deadline for Newspapers: Find a New Business Plan before You Vanish | By Knowledge@Wharton (Wharton)
Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs | By Richard Richard Pérez-Peña (NYTimes)
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