Q: What’s the future of print media in the Internet age?
A: If you’ve got ink on your hands, which means that you’re a print person, you’re finished. These news-gathering organizations depended upon being the only place in town. And everybody has advertising now. So, it’s a very tough transition.
You’re going to pay for information that you want. And you’re going to pay directly, which means there’s going to be either micropayments or subscriptions. Advertising in the new world order can’t support much of anything. Therefore, you’re going to have hybrid business models that are going to have subscription revenues and other types of revenues.
We’re going to have professional news-gathering operations. I do not think we’re going to be a world where we’re going to have citizen reporters doing all of the work. I think that it’s going to be a really tough period, it will get worse, and then I think it will come out the other end by being supported by other revenue streams.
CREDIT: via CEO Forum: Media mogul Diller - USATODAY.com.
A print publication’s brand is just a stamp for quality control - informational accuracy, editing, compelling writing. Since the brand might belong to a large public facing entity, it’s a stamp of accountability.
With independent news makers - photojournalists, writers, bloggers - it’s hard to achieve the same level of trust (QC and accountability).
So in addition to the self-policing/self-correcting nature of the web, the suggestion here is that we’ll see umbrella companies that aggregate, quality control, and put a single brand stamp on news content generated by a distributed network of contributors. At the same time, these new organizations will avoid the cost basis of print publications; no printing, physical distribution, smaller physical “plant”, fewer full time salaried staff, etc.
To get ahead of the curve, why wouldn’t the NYT et al. just stop producing a print product today? Is this really what subscribers are paying for? A dead tree that looses relevance within a few days and becomes fire kindling? Or are they just paying for the trusted info brand?
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Posted 01 May 2009 at 2:38 pm ¶I think it’s important to get over the concept that distinctly different genres of media (print, broadcast, Web, etc.) will persist in the future.
Information and methods of distributing information are different topics. There appears to be a voracious, and growing, demand for information. However some information distribution models (notably print) appear to be losing popularity because of a variety of factors: economic conditions, production/distribution costs, immediacy, changing patterns of consumption, technology advances, etc.
Simply switching to a Web distribution model and charging micropayments for everything is an over-simplification. The organizations that ultimately prosper will re-think how they gather and present information. The challenge is finding the right mix of information distribution methods, and producing a variety of unique, quality products.
As economic conditions improve, expect a period of consolidations, strategic alliances, acquisitions and new ventures. While any tumultuous period is going to leave unfortunate victims; I remain hopeful that the successful information sources that emerge will mark an improvement over the mindless drivel that comprises most of the current information products.
A business model funded largely by information consumers (as opposed to advertisers) could ultimately be a very positive development.
It’s hard to tell from that Diller interview whether he really has a clue — what a waste of a CEO interview.
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Posted 01 May 2009 at 5:49 pm ¶This whole “death of print” and “dead tree” thing begins to drive my crazy and seems to be getting as ridiculous as the Y2K bug. Does really ANYBODY believe that print is going to be dead soon or even in 10 years? That everything is going to be on the internet in the foreseeable future?
Maybe in 100 years ok.
Nobody with a serious mind will deny that vast changes are occuring and that new business models will have to be developed (which will take a considerable amount of time). Arguably newspapers will have a tremendously hard time and maybe become obsolete at some point. But I do not see magazines becoming obsolete for decades. I think the internet as a replacement for magazines is just pathetic and to speak of a general death of print is really dubious.
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craig Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 pm
@doktor,
I think print as a mass consumer medium will be finished, yes. Within 10 years. Time, newsweek, your local paper etc,
Print will still exist in more niche magazines. And in special “collector” issues from the big guys. I feel that most niche mags will probably be electronic for the most part, but you might be able to get a print edition for an added fee.
This is all made possible by technology - it’s much cheaper to do short runs of printed material than it used to be, so an on-demand hard copy of an art magazine won’t be outrageously expensive.
Right now the speedbump is in delivery of the media to the consumer in a convenient format. The amazon kindle points the way to a future where print quality meets electronic convenience. I’ve read that prototypes of 300 DPI full color e-paper are being polished in the lab, so we’re not far.
Take the iphone, scale it up a few inches, replace the LCD with color e-paper, then have the chinese knock off brigade turn it into a $99 product and there you go. Paper becomes a niche product.
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doktor Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 6:55 am
@craig
I would take up any bet that within 10 years weekly papers will NOT have disappeared.
Again- Newspaper: some will dissapear. Maybe in the US a lot will dissapear. In Europe and Asia and Emerging Markets a lot of Newspapers will still be there in 10 years.
But that Print will exist in only niche or collector magazines is laughable. Maybe I have heard this just too often the last 20 years (and in the meanwhile print has always increased).
Also people working in media seem to have a natural disposition of predicting doom.
Apart from that most of your argument seems to consist of the usual technoblabla which totally ignores the user.
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craig Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am
@doktor,
It’s funny reading luddite comments on internet blogs. Seems ironic in a way.
“Digital cameras will never replace film.”
(heard this one circa 1998)
Do you really think paper - the price of which has skyrocketed and is the largest material expense of any publication - is going to be around forever as a mass medium? Are there going to be magic trees invented that create sudden huge amounts of paper that somehow render it more economical than electronic delivery?
“Print has always increased” - have you been to a printer lately? They are retooling away from the huge presses that require ginormous runs to make economic sense. It’s all about short runs and making on-demand printing profitable now.
There’s disagreement, and then there is just not seeing whats in front of you…
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We’ll run out of printed publications when we run out of petroleum burning cars.
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Posted 02 May 2009 at 4:47 pm ¶It is my understanding that, except for a minority group of media companies, the majority of papers and other media companies are not in trouble. Now, the recession is impacting them like it is all businesses. But if you remove that factor, most are healthy. The ones that are unhealthy tend to only be unhealthy in one area of their business.
I’m not business expert but, I think my description is fairly accurate.
However, ironically, the media seems to have blown out of proportion the over all problem. Probably, because, it is scary when entire papers are cut to the the bone.
Technology versus print issues aside, I think Diller got it wrong.
I think, like many non creative executives, he also is forgetting that, in entertainment, content is it. If your content attracts viewers, are you gonna care if it is big budget or not? Nope.
For example, the X Men series has brought in something like a billion dollars in revenue. Is it because they tried to save money, do cheaper special effects, and hire bad actors or, make it a reality show instead of fiction?
One worrying aspect to this whole local and city paper death scene is the loss of content! So while papers probably could survive and could have survived, they are now adding another reason to not get the paper (or even look at their web sites).
The Baltimore Sun was a really great paper 2 years ago. Now it is reduced to two meager sections. One is sports. The Sunday edition was eviscerated. It took me hours to go through it. Now I knock it off in less than 30 minutes. Why would anyone want to subscribe to now or look at the same content online?
BTW: inexplicably, they deliver the weekend edition to my house, and I don’t subscribe. I tried to tell them but, the customer service was so incompetent, I stopped bothering.
Lack of content, poor customer service, self fulfilling dooms day attitude, lack of innovation - particularly useful and easy to use innovations - and a management based on numbers rather than passion are what is killing news papers. Not Craig’s List, not bloggers, not Diller.
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Posted 03 May 2009 at 6:43 am ¶Editors can blame the demise of print on reduced advertising revenue, high print and delivery costs, etc. But, lets face it, in these tough economic times they have turned to:
1) Cheap amateur photography of inferior quality, thereby reducing the quality of their publication, causing reduced circulation, causing them to buy even cheaper, even lesser quality photography, causing even less circulation…and that continues.
2) They have blurred the editorial and news pages to such an extent that their entire publication becomes a politically charged, editorial page. Most of their readers do not agree with their editorial page, and when the objectiveness of their news work becomes less clear, their subscribers decide that they would rather get their news elsewhere.
As I have posted elsewhere, I gave up my 30-year subscription to National Geographic and other nationally circulated magazines based on the faults listed above. Even though the photography is slick, gritty, and “stylish”, that is NOT what I want from a picture that should illustrate the story. And when a publication such as National Georgraphic and Newsweek which are supposed to report the astounding facts to me, but rather want to feed me their opinions, I turn elsewhere for the facts, so that I can form my OWN opinions.
When editors begin to realize that the reading public wants the facts, ON BOTH SIDES, and good, REAL illustrations of those facts, things will turn around IMHO.
If they continue seeking cheap illustrations and cheap commentary rather than good reporting, their magazine, newspaper, or advertising, will continue to loose viewership. They lost mine.
T. C. Knight
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Posted 03 May 2009 at 11:33 am ¶A lot of publications can be read in minutes at the newsstand, which is exactly what I do. I gladly pay $8-15 for good quality publications that will take me a week to get through.
I am in complete agreement with much of what’s been said. When times got tough, many media outlets cut the few things that separated them from amateur blogs; namely quality writing and photography. If you run a restaurant and serve up crap food, with bad service, there’s no question as to what the outcome will be. Why is it so difficult for this industry to figure out?
There were far too many mediocre (at best) publications available, and many did ignore the internet for too long, and are suffering because of it. But they are also suffering due to the other poor business practices already discussed.
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Posted 03 May 2009 at 3:03 pm ¶