Digital News

Yet another challenge for publishers: Subscription fatigue.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Content Creation and Content Management, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing , , , , , , , ,

As if it isn’t enough that newspaper and magazine publishers have to compete with an ever-widening array of information providers, in the effort to migrate subscription revenues from print to digital these publishers are squaring off against an additional challenge: subscription fatigue.

Not every consumer is opposed to paying for media, but with so many fee-based streaming services now being offered — including the ones by powerhouses like Netflix and Spotify — trying to get people to focus on “yet another” resource is proving difficult.

Moreover, when it comes to news information sources it’s even more challenging. According to a recent Digital News Report prepared by Reuters Institute, when given a choice between paying for news or paying for a video streaming service, only ~12% of respondents in the Reuters survey stated that they would pick the news resource.

It seems that with so many time demands on people’s online activities, fewer are willing to pay for access to information that they don’t wish to commit to consuming on a regular basis. Unlike most of the entertainment streaming services, news stories are often available from free sources whenever a consumer might choose to access such news stories. Those alternative news sources may not be as comprehensive, but i’s a tradeoff many consumers appear willing to make.

This is hurting everyone in the news segment, including local newspapers in smaller markets which have faced a major falloff in print advertising revenues.

Underscoring this dynamic, more than 1,800 newspapers in the United States have closed their doors in the past 15 years. Today, fewer than half of the country’s counties have even one newspaper within their borders. This fallout is affecting the availability of some news information, as local media have a history of covering stories that aren’t covered elsewhere.

But it’s yet more collateral damage in the sea change that’s upended the world of newspapers and periodicals in recent years.

More findings from the Reuters Institute report can be accessed here.

The latest newsroom employment stats aren’t pretty — and unfortunately not “fake” either.

Phillip Nones Human Resources, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing, Social Commentary , , , , , ,

For people who might be hoping for a turnaround in the news industry that could take us back to a world more like the one we once knew – you know, with actual journalists writing primary-sourced stories and conducting formal fact-checking – those days seem less likely than ever to return.

In late July, analytics firm MediaRadar reported on the latest stats for print advertising in the United States – and they’re continuing a long slide by falling another 13% between January and April of 2018.

Even worse:  Most of the companies that stopped their print advertising during the period didn’t migrate their ad dollars over to digital. Instead, they stopped advertising altogether.

This by now numbingly-familiar trend in advertising is directly related to the financial well-being of the news media, as advertising has traditionally bankrolled the lion’s share of newsroom activities.

But with revenues dropping relentlessly, it’s having an outsized impact on newsroom employment. The Pew Research Center has just released stats on the number of employees in American newsrooms – and those figures aren’t pretty, either.

According to Pew, in 2008 America’s newsrooms collectively had approximately 114,000 reporters, editors, photographers and camera personnel on staff. As of 2017, the number had plummeted to around 88,000.

That loss of ~27,000 people represents nearly 25% of all the newsroom jobs that were existed in newspaper, radio, TV/cable and other information services in 2008.

Not surprisingly, the biggest decline was experienced in the newspaper segment – down a whopping 45% to ~39,000 jobs. The digital-native sector was something of a bright spot, with job numbers increasing by nearly 80% over the same period to reach a level of ~13,000 jobs in 2017.

But digital news personnel growth hasn’t been nearly enough to make up for the job losses suffered by the other newsrooms.

What’s more, even digital newsroom jobs aren’t particularly secure, with frequent restructurings being the order of the day thanks to the unsettled nature of the industry as it attempts to adjust to ever-evolving news-consumption preferences.

How are news media organizations responding? Give them credit for trying all sorts of gambits – from membership programs to paid newsletters, premium news paywalls and in-house content studios.

But how many of those efforts have proven to be financially robust enough to shoulder the costs of running a “legitimate” newsroom?  Whatever the number, it hasn’t been sufficient, because whether we like it or not, most people have become conditioned to expect their news and information delivered free of charge.  And while many may lip service to favoring traditional journalistic practices, most aren’t willing to put up their own money to pay for it as part of the bargain.

Meanwhile, the hollowing out of traditionally structured newsrooms continues on, with no end in sight.  I wonder if there even are other financial or business models that could stop the hemorrhaging of jobs in newsrooms.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

The New York Times: Out of print in ten years?

Phillip Nones Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It isn’t anything particularly special to hear people talking about the declining market for print newspapers, and how market dynamics and demographic trends have put the traditional newspaper publishing model at risk.

At the same time, most newspaper publications have found it quite challenging to “migrate” their print customers to paid-subscription digital platforms. The plethora of free news sites online makes it difficult to entice people to pay for digital access to the news – even if the quality of the “free” coverage is lower.

New York Times CEO Mark Thompson, appearing on CNBC’s Power Lunch program (February 12, 2018).

But it was quite something to hear a forecast made by Mark Thompson, The New York Times’ CEO.  Earlier this month, Thompson made remarks during CNBC’s Power Lunch broadcast that amounted to a prediction that the NYT’s print edition won’t be around in another ten years.

Thompson went on to explain that his company’s objective is to build the digital product even while print is going away:

“The key thing for us is that we’re pivoting. Our plan is to go on serving our loyal print subscribers as long as we can.  But meanwhile, to build up the digital business so that we can have a successful growing company and a successful news operation long after print is gone.”

It’s one thing for newspapers in various cities across the country to be facing the eventuality of throwing in the towel on their print product. It’s quite another for a newspaper as vaunted as The New York Times to be candidly predicting this result happening.

It would seem that the NYT, along with the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and possibly USA Today would be the four papers most able to preserve their print editions because of their business models (USA Today’s hotel distribution program) or simply because of their vaunted reputations as America’s only daily newspapers with anything approaching nationwide distribution.

I guess this is what makes the Thompson remarks so eyebrow-raising. If there isn’t a long-term future for The New York Times when it comes to print, what does that say about the rest of the newspaper industry?  “Hopeless” seems like the watchword.

It will be interesting indeed if, a decade from now, we find no print newspapers being published in this country save for hyper-local news publications – the ones which rely on print subscribers seeing their friends and family in the paper for weddings, funerals, community activities, school sports and other such parochial (or vanity) purposes.

Interesting … but a little depressing, too.

Rupert Murdoch’s “Paid Content” Gamble

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Rupert MurdochMedia mogul Rupert Murdoch’s pronouncement last week that beginning in July 2010, online content for all of his news media properties will be available for a fee – not for free – has surprised many in the industry.

“Quality journalism is not cheap,” Murdoch declared. His announcement comes hard on the heels of his massive media conglomerate News Corporation reporting a ~$3.4 billion loss for the last fiscal year.

While admiring Mr. Murdoch’s brave stance and willingness to get out in front of an issue that has bedeviled the newspaper industry for the past four or five years, one is left wondering if he’s playing the role of Don Quixote rather than Richard the Lionheart in this drama.

For sure, the pay-per-view business model looks great to any publishing company that has seen the advertising-driven business model come under so much stress and strain in recent years. And The Wall Street Journal, one of Murdoch’s properties, has been able to charge a fee for online access in a practice that dates back prior to that publication’s acquisition by News Corporation.

So what will happen in this glorious experiment? Will legions of newshounds flock to the various Murdoch sites – The Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Australian, New York Post – and plunk down pay-per-view dollars or a monthly access fee for the privilege of reading the latest news bits?

Or will people rely on the many other (free) outlets for news, while also receiving and passing along “copy-and-paste” materials over the web — an effortless task that can be completed in mere seconds?

[And good luck trying to use legal means to prevent the dissemination of copyrighted material; the litigation costs could well outstrip any compensation dollars awarded, while being a major distraction inside the company and causing a PR kerfuffle outside.]

That giant sucking sound you hear could be the hordes of cyber-visitors heading on over to CNN, USA Today and other free news sites, whose traffic volume will spike and perhaps even bring in additional advertising revenues off the extra hits. Would these and other free, advertising-driven media properties like to find ways to increase revenues? Sure. But most of them would prefer to be #3 or #4 to take the leap on paid content – not a high-risk first or second.

There will always be some people willing to pay for premium content. But let’s face it; most news isn’t “premium.” It’s a commodity – and its dissemination is helped along by hundreds or thousands of people copying and forwarding articles and and/or links via e-mail, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook … you name it.

Rupert Murdoch has a history of being pretty savvy when it comes to the news business. And certainly he has the power and the resources to undertake this new effort.

But his naiveté may be showing on this one. He is, after all, nearly 80 years old and notoriously online-illiterate himself. And while the saying goes that “knowledge is power” … “power without knowledge” isn’t usually a good recipe for success.