It’s the question on everyone’s lips: What will media look like in the future?

I was riding the 6:02 from North Sydney to Central station on the way home from work this evening. The girl sitting in front of me was reading two forms of media simultaneously.

In both hands she held The Metro newspaper, a free city newspaper here in Sydney and in her right hand she also held her mobile handset, which was clasped at eye level. She was switching between the two – old media and new.

It was a good metaphor for the forces at play in media. These well reported forces are transforming the media industry and giving media industry moguls like Rupert Murdoch major headaches. Every dogs gets its day, as they say.

I have been thinking about the forces at play on the media industry – it’s relevant to a project I am working on at the moment.

Media in the future won’t necessarily be re-shaped by one  extreme at the expense of another but I think its safe to say that the chips have to ultimately fall on one side or the other, in most if not all cases.

The sooner the better because media is important and sustainable and credible industries need certainty.

So here’s a black and white analysis of some of the forces influencing the future of media. There’s no thinking behind the black and white. The direction that media takes has fundamental implications for the marketing industry but also for our society, communities and families in the future.

It’s with great pleasure that I announce the launch of a new Just Another 24 Hours Series entitled Media Directions. This follows the short and sweet The Microhoo Application series.

The Media Directions series will tackle the forces outlined in this post one by one and seek to pick one winner over another (if possible). The series will capture the characteristics of future media . This analysis will be highly subjective with the occasional statistic and fact thrown in for good measure.

And if you have any suggestions about other forces impacting the media industry then please add them to comments and I will tackle these in due course.

The outcome for Media Directions will be a definitive mind map of the media industry of the future, which will act as a foundation planning and strategy tool.

Watch this space.

Subscribe to Just Another 24 Hours by Email

]]> http://justanother24hours.com/media/media-directions-forces-at-play-that-will-determine-the-future-of-media/feed/ 0 http://justanother24hours.com/technology/options-still-on-the-table-to-support-the-future-of-quality-journalism/ http://justanother24hours.com/technology/options-still-on-the-table-to-support-the-future-of-quality-journalism/#comments Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:59:30 +0000 Daniel Young http://justanother24hours.com/?p=703 Simon Sharwood, a freelance journalist in Australia, recently blogged two out of his three ideas for new business models in print journalism. Both ideas are based on the concept of industry funding.

In the first, funding would come from industry associations and industry groups. In the second, the PR industry funds print journalism via a licensing system, which grants the license holder access to those journalists – similar to the registration of lobbyists.

Both concepts seem to create dependencies that would undermine journalistic independence and integrity, although the risk of this occurring in the second model could be minimised: “…to be a registered PR, one would stump up a fee that goes into an independently administered fund that is then redistributed to publishers with oversight to ensure it goes on wages” (Simon – in comments).

Putting aside the practical challenges of this model, some of which are discussed in the post, I doubt that the model would be sustainable. Funding from the PR industry would be a diminishing return as media relations become a smaller part of what PR agencies do.

Here’s where I come up with my alternative solve all solution.

I might need to get back to you on that but here are some other funding alternatives:

• Newspapers earn not for profit status and the associated financial and tax breaks
• Introduction of a subscription/ micro-payment system that covers multiple competing publications. Check out ViewPass, which would process payments and collect data to drive targeted advertising or trade content for information about the reader’s preferences and interest.
• Newspapers regulate the re-use of content – in the same way that the music industry does.
• Philanthropy may sustain some publications.

The subject is such an emotive and complex issue. I am definitely in the ‘newspapers are a good thing’ camp – but at the end of the day if the model ceases to work then we have to let ‘nature’ take its course.  Consolidation is inevitable but I think that the concept of a newspaper-less society is somewhat alarmist.

By the way, newspapers are flourishing in the developing world. 

Ultimately, I see a small number of print publications containing analysis and opinion available internationally, nationally and in major cities. They’ll play a key role in holding institutions, business and Government to account and would be supported by the not-for-profit- funding model if advertising revenue alone was not sufficient.

I am positive that the pendulum will swing back from digital to traditional media and that things will balance themselves out.

Quality print journalism will survive even if the industry is vastly consolidated and readers will turn to the Web for breaking news, trade/niche content,  entertainment and video. I don’t personally have an issue with a micro-pay scheme – I’d be happy to pay a small amount for quality content from someone that ‘appreciated the technical nuances of the fields concerned’.

There continues to be considerable opportunity for the newspaper industry to reduce cost which makes this scenario seem feasible. Moody’s estimates that just 14% of newspaper operating costs are related to content creation. It’s not all doom and gloom – there are still workable options.

Pew Research Centre

The Pew Research Center has published its 2008 News Media Consumption Survey, which – unsurprisingly – found a continued migration of readers / consumers from print media to online media. It also found a decline in newspaper readership – print and online. 43% of those surveyed in 2006 said they read a newspaper ‘yesterday’ – compared to 38% in the 2008 survey. The number of people that read just a print version of the newspaper fell to 25% from 34%.

Newspaper readership declined overall, 14% of Americans said they read an online newspaper ‘yesterday’ compared to 9% in 2006.

One third of newspaper readers consumed their content via the Web in 2008 compared to a quarter in 2006. Generational segmentation shows that younger readers are more likely to source their news content online, as you might expect, but the decline in print readership is consistent across the board. Baby Boomers are less inclined to read print media down from 42% to 34% in the two years between 2006 and 2008.

Radio as a source of news content has experienced decline in the broadcast media category, while TV news has held its own since 2006, except in the Gen Y demographic. This table shows the most frequented Online news sites – the presence of new media brands in the top half of thise table is interesting. Many print media publications have successfully transferred their business to the Web but remain hamstrung by the inefficient and broken business models associated with their print editions. These challenges are compounded by the sharp decline in advertising revenue, which is accelerating the transformation of the news media.

Pew Research Center 200

I’ve heard it be said that it would be more economical for the publisher of the New York Times to provide every subscriber with an Amazon Kindle than it is for them to produce and distribute a hard copy version of its product. San Francisco could soon become the the first major city in America to not have a daily metro newspaper.

It seems almost certain that daily newspaper will cease to exist in the new future – its a case of when.

The scary aspect to this is the fact that readers will have the power to choose the stories they want to read. We are reliant on the reader to turn to serious online media outlets to ensure that we – as a community – remain informed about what’s going on in the world.  Will individuals organise themselves effectively to hold our institutions, Governments and leaders to account?