BBC News: Newspapers are far from dead, despite the challenge from online news and blogs, media executives have been told. […] The challenge now for established newspaper groups is not just to respond to changes in the consumption of electronic media, but to start profiting from the new ways that audiences access their media.
I’ve deliberately truncated the full BBC story, reporting on the annual meeting of the World Association of Newspapers, as I want to highlight a point – that new-media channels like blogs are not a dire threat to established mainstream media if mainstream media embraces these new channels, and not resist them.
It’s become literally self-evident that blogs in particular are here to stay and those members of the mainstream media – whether print or broadcast – who embrace them will find that they will help open up new channels to build relationships with readers, viewers and listeners in new and different ways.
They are evolutionary and will help mainstream media make the jump through hyperspace (I think that’s an apt Star Wars metaphor) to reach a new plateau of loyalty-creation with those readers, viewers and listeners.
It’s still embryonic and some of the statistics about newspaper circulation growth quoted in the BBC story (see below) could maintain some of the complacency and denial exhibited by some media when it comes to the subject of blogs – read this story in USA Today, for instance, for such an example. Actually, best to see it as absolute cluelessness by the journalist and his editor, as Don Giannatti so beautifully points out.
Anyway, the BBC report shows the sign of the current mainstream media times.
On the one hand, things aren’t looking too bad:
- global newspaper sales hit a new daily high of 395 million in 2004
- the five largest markets are China, with 93.5 million copies sold daily; India (78.8 million); Japan (70.4 million); the United States (48.3 million); and Germany (22.1 million)
- the audience for newspaper websites grew 32% last year, and 350% over five years from a very low base
- 2004 saw the best advertising performance in four years, with a revenue increase of 5.3%
And on the other hand:
"Newspapers are clearly undergoing a renaissance through new products, new formats, new titles, new editorial approaches, better distribution and better marketing," [Timothy Balding, WAN director-general] said. "Despite the incredible competitive challenges in the advertising market, newspapers have more than held their own and their revenues are strongly on the increase again."
But he warned that although newspapers’ online revenues were on the increase, this did not mean the internet posed no threat to the industry.
Speakers [at the WAN meeting] cautioned against complacency, predicting that free papers, online news sites, and the spread of blogs and other non-mainstream news sources would put growing pressure on the readership of traditional newspapers.
I think the point’s clear. And I also think more journalists and editors ‘get it’ about blogs than many bloggers think. Take a look at editorsweblog.org to see what I mean.
Thanks for the link. I also think that the numbers for Newspaper readership vs Blogs are somewhat misleading. Newspapers have many different ‘sections’ news and commentary being only a small part. There are few Blogs with such a selection of content. So if I buy a newspaper for the movie listings, or the gardening report, I may not even read the news or opinion pages – yet I am now considered a reader. Those commentaries and news are what i visit Blogs for, not the tripe found in the R&G (Phx) paper.
The true value in the numbers would be how many purchased the newspaper to get news and opinion vs blog sites of the same.
Cheers,
That was a great post you wrote, Don, re the USA Today piece!
I think the point you’re raising here also gets into the wide area of demographics and news personalization.
Rather than make a lengthy comment here, I’ll reference a post I wrote in March on the age of media personalization. That’s highly relevant.
http://www.nevon.net/nevon/2005/03/the_age_of_medi.html
Great Post Neville –
I refer to a post I commented on below, well worth a read. What interests me is the depth, range and intensity of the conversation about the future of newspapers and as the old agdage goes, there are three sides to the truth, your side, their side and the truth.
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/03/29/nwsp_dwn.html
As it does seem that there is evidence that newspaper sales in the US are declining as people go elsewhere for what they perceive to be unfiltered news and comment. Or they want to access the news in different ways.
Also, I would strenuously urge you to read Murdoch’s speech http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_247.html he made to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the comments that Jeff Jarvis made at Buzz Machine
Jeff says, “The speech—astonishing not so much for what it said as for who said it—may go down in history as the day that the stodgy newspaper business officially woke up to the new realities of the internet age. Talking at times more like a pony-tailed, new-age technophile than a septuagenarian old-media god-like figure, Mr Murdoch said that news “providers” such as his own organisation had better get web-savvy, stop lecturing their audiences, “become places for conversation” and “destinations” where “bloggers” and “podcasters” congregate to “engage our reporters and editors in more extended discussions.” He also criticised editors and reporters who often “think their readers are stupid”.
You can see what I had to say here
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2005/05/on_march_29_jay.html
Because I think that the issues facing newspapers is beyond just blogs, as you rightly point out. Newspapers need to understand that they are not in the print industry – that’s a format, but, that they are in the information distribution business. New digital platforms offer greater opportunites as well as greater threats.
Great post re; The Age of Media you referred to. It does seem to be a shame that so many in the profession are not up to it. I have been interviewed by media folks more than two dozen times. Way more than half of those interviews resulted in mis-quotes, speculation based on the reporters pre-conceptions, and sheer BS as to what I was doing or what the company was really all about. It really turned me off to the whole media thing. We rarely do media these days, but we are considering PodCast PR items. Considering carefully.
Alan, that is a great post indeed by Jay Rosen. I wish I’d read it sooner.
Don, I was just reading your post again. A really excellent rebuttal!