Two weeks ago, I moved into a condominium in downtown Dallas. It was quite a lifestyle change from an otherwise non-descript apartment home in a non-descript neighbourhood in Dallas that required car transportation for everything.

 

For the new condo, think expansive downtown view. Think vibrant, growing, intimate urban neighbourhood. Think lots of things to discover for the first time. Think trains. Think walking. Think lots of dining and entertainment options within five minutes.

 

I visit places like this all the time in urban centers worldwide. I’ve just never lived someplace like this.

 

Yet as all things with me, media intersections are everywhere.

 

First, I’m reading the print newspaper more ...[more]

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Hey, losers: lead the counter-revolution of curation and relevance for newspapers

Posted at 06:15 PM - 15 March 2010

Newspapers were branded “losers” this week at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas – the hind-end waste product of change brought about by digital innovation. We were lumped in with the peasants who lost the Industrial Revolution at the expense of manufacturing giants.

Yet Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amateur, also criticised the fact that change agents worship innovation for innovation's sake. And he let in a glimmer of hope for newspaper companies losing out to the “crowd” that Social Darwinism has wrought as we enter the second decade of the 21st century.

The crowd's victory in the information revolution has destroyed big brands (Toyota), the social contract with government, and the backbone of content production industries such as journalism, movies, and music.

Yet while the crowd celebrates new digital thought leaders, it has become overwhelmed with the real-time stream of information they thought they wanted. And they are demanding more and more curation to filter ...[more]

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Newspaper ownership one of the great misunderstandings in our industry today

Posted at 09:07 AM - 28 February 2010

One of the great misunderstandings about the newspaper business today is why companies, families, individuals, trusts, unions, and non-profit associations own newspapers.

Ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev is expected this week to pay a token £1 for control of The Independent, a last-place, money-losing quality daily in the United Kingdom's hyper-competitive national newspaper market. This, after he took the under-performing Evening Standard off the hands of the Daily Mail General Trust a year ago. This is hardly a first: Rupert Murdoch has reportedly lost money on the New York Post for years, while quality dailies worldwide have also frequently been money-losers.

What's the motivation to own a newspaper?

Newspaper publishers are complainers by nature. I heard a story once that in the 1960s and 1970s, Canadian publisher Roy Thomson would quietly show up for industry board meetings only to hear complaint after complaint about how hard the business was, how obstinate the unions were, how new ...[more]

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Integrated ad sales require research, elevator conversation, end to caterpillar sales calls, and knowing your market

Posted at 08:54 AM - 20 February 2010

INMA held a seminar last week in Chicago on integrated advertising, and I gleaned four strategic insights.

First, there's a large gap between newspapers that do and don't possess the research skills necessary to support metrics-based advertising sales. The unique value proposition that newspapers should convey to advertisers is the rich data behind the creative execution – a point driven home time and again by the advertising community that one day soon will be making buys exclusively on numbers.

Second, even for the newspapers rich in data and rich in proactive advertising “hunters,” there is a major gap in processing that data into an elevator conversation for sales reps – especially with the tricky transition to multi-media sales. I sensed an urgency to bridge that gap, but no clear road map. This really is where a national trade association is needed to step in and make that connection for their newspapers.

Third, advertisers want a single sales ...[more]

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Why Edgar Bronfman's comments about where music industry fits in Digital Age could impact newspapers

Posted at 11:21 AM - 16 February 2010

In recent weeks, Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. revealed his emerging views on where content fits amid the glut of platforms and alternative choices for consumers. His words have relevance to newspaper publishers looking for any sliver of clues on where differentiating value exists for news content.

In short:

Apple's iTunes – which is a significant player in the music industry that major labels deem too dominant at the moment – will come under huge competitive pressure from the glut of unlimited music services and mobile services.

New access models for musical content are emerging, notably unlimited paid subscription models.

These paid subscription models will generate more value for Warner Music and other labels than per-play or per-purchase models. Said Bronfman: “The number of potential subscribers dwarves the number of people purchasing music on iTunes.”

One of the key tools musical services will provide in this hyper-war for consumers will be content.

Music ...[more]

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How a Florida library's value calculator might translate to newspapers

Posted at 06:37 AM - 29 January 2010

Newspapers often have difficulty communicating value to consumers. We have paid newspapers, free newspapers, and now our free web sites are flirting with paid models.

I just ran across a personal savings calculator from the State Library and Archives of Florida, attempting to show library users the commercial value of their services. Titled “What Is Your Library Worth To You,” it's a graphical interface asking how many books borrowed, magazines borrowed, museum passes borrowed, how often you use a meeting room, and so on.

It seems like this is a simple idea for newspapers. How often do you read a newspaper left on a table? How often do you view a newspaper web site? How often do you call the newspaper for a question? And I'm sure there are more. It would be fascinating to generate a dollar value for the “free” stuff newspapers provide. It would be fascinating to calculate that over the course of those “free”' experiences.

In ...[more]

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At Apple e-reader’s birth, remember to respect the platform

Posted at 07:12 AM - 27 January 2010

I can't recall the last time there was this much excitement among newspaper publishers about, well, much of anything. Yet the announced launch of the new Apple e-reader – with its promises of colour, video, audio, iPhone-like interface, and more – has publishers positively giddy.

Yet as Obama might say, there is a “learning moment” at this Apple launch that can't be ignored.

Market value for content providers is generated by the clever integration of audience, content, and platform.

Not all audiences are the same.

Not all content is the same.

Not all platforms are the same.

Slicing across all three and finding the synergies is where money can be made.

The value of the Apple e-reader, at launch, will not be the same value in a year.

Start with the audience and work your way backward. This will be a tech-savvy audience with loads of disposable income, information-hungry, and gadget-starved. Probably ...[more]

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Keep your company's foot on the transformation pedal

Posted at 10:55 AM - 20 January 2010

What's more important to publishers today, transformation or maximising what you have?

I'm getting a vague sense, this the third week of the New Year, that many newspapers are awakening to this question.

Newspaper executives accustomed to their still-generous holiday schedules – yes, some still haven't returned to the office as of this writing – are feeling the full effects of 18 months of downsizing.

Two and three jobs have been crammed into one, yet the same amount of work is expected to be produced. The New Year always produces a rush of activity in newspaper offices, and the 2010 rush is burying many offices.

Where do we get the mental bandwidth to squeeze in time to think about where our business is going? Or is that something we ponder in a serene moment ...[more]

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Paid content debate peels new layers in an industry torn by influence and profits

Posted at 08:32 PM - 05 January 2010

Influence versus profits.

Sounds like an academic debate, doesn't it?

Yet as we usher in a new year, this simple stand-off is at the heart of agonising debates within newspapers about whether to put up barriers to content.

A publisher of a mid-sized daily laughed when I asked what business he's in. “Profit” – so put up the pay wall if that's what is necessary.

A senior executive at a major North American newspaper said his company is “absolutely opposed” to erecting barriers to content because their charter stresses they are in business to influence society. Said the executive of this Top 10 daily: “We'd be happy to make 5% margins and continue to influence. For that reason, we will remain all about volume, volume, volume.”

And now we peel back another layer of an industry we thought we knew.

These “academic debates” are being hashed out in very un-academic settings these days: board ...[more]

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Sorry to disappoint the pundits, but newspapers survived the storm

Posted at 09:04 AM - 30 December 2009

Reading through the inevitable year-end looks back at 2009, it's amusing to see how the pundits have just now “discovered” that the worst economic pounding in eight decades didn't actually kill newspapers after all.

That hardly makes newspapers a growth industry. That hardly means there aren't more cutbacks to come. That hardly means we shouldn't double and triple efforts to regain key advertising categories. That hardly means we shouldn't shift budgets toward business-building activities such as sales, marketing, research, and digital. That hardly means it hasn't been one hell of a ride.

Yet it does mean that what INMA has repeatedly said this year has proven true:

There is no pending death of the newspaper industry.

Second-tier newspapers in the best of times would die in the worst of times.

Debt-laden corporate parents stole the headlines, while the newspapers they owned quietly scaled operations and maintained profitability.

Newspapers with generic missions positioned in the ...[more]

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