News media continues to lose business – blame the Internet?
Hmmm – isn’t the Internet just an information transport vehicle? Isn’t it that instead of information on paper the same information could be delivered online to more people at less cost? Isn’t then the news and media industry in a GREAT POSITION because it is a huge growth opportunity?
Well – Yes, it would be if the news and media industry would still be in the news business. But they are NOT. The swapped their news business where they did everything possible to perfectly satisfy the readers information needs with well researched and professionally written articles for a more profitable and less hard to create advertising business. The consumer can get a magazine for $1 shipped to their homes. That $1 is less than the cost to produce print the paper and ship it let alone aggregating the content. But the consumer likes it because it’s cheap and the media company get the real money from advertisers. Unfortunately for ALL PARTICIPATING PARTIES it doesn’t really work out.
THE READER:
They get what they are pay for. And it is exactly what it is: cheap. And so the readership get smaller and smaller.
THE ADVERTISER:
Because readership goes away, the advertising effectiveness is declining and less and less advertisers do print advertising in news papers and magazines.
THE MEDIA COMPANY:
Readership goes away because the content is cheap and the advertising is boring. I guess it has nothing to do with the Internet.
The alternatives:
THE ADVERTISER:
Businesses try alternative ways to advertise cheaper and wider. And while the effectiveness is still not there the business recognize they need to find new ways to attract customers: Media Industry good bye.
THE READER:
Doesn’t trust media anymore. Not only that the content is badly researched and badly written and too much advertising – even worse, much of the content is done in conjunction with advertisers, sponsored or even paid for. In contrast to the new media like blogs, forums, communities where the professionalism may not be as good as it could be (I.e. this blog) but there is at least honest information – may be shaded and opinionated but still much better than "controlled" information.
THE MEDIA COMPANY:
Struggling more and more. Many go out of business, many get absorbed in roll ups from larger companies, only a very few handle the information stream in close cooperation with political and industry leaders. But most of them will extinct like so many other jobs including brush makers, horn maker, wool dyers and hundreds of others who extinct over time. Sorry there seem to be no alternative – the law of evolution takes over.
Well maybe unless the media industry finds new ways to create premium content in excellent quality and delivers it instantly over the internet to my email or RSS feed - assembled to my personal interests and needs, with no advertising and from an organization that is exclusively paid by the readers, not by sponsors - an organization that has only one attribute: TRUST.
But that would be hard work and who wants to do that? Technically a "No-Brainer" but the species called journalist is already extinct.
