November 11, 2010
UNC proposes news biz game plan for 2014
On Friday Nov. 12, the University of North Carolina is presenting a paper that aims to show news organizations a potential path for renewal in the digital age. Here are some of the highlights from The News Landscape in 2014: Transformed or Diminished? Formulating a Game Plan for Survival in the Digital Age...
UNC’s game plan for news orgs has three complementary strategies:
Shedding legacy costs as quickly as possible. “In many newspapers, printing and distribution account for almost half of expenses… [But] few (if any) newspaper publishers have a game plan or timeline for transitioning a majority of their print readers to online delivery. ...The tipping point occurs when a well-defined and sizable segment of the population begins to organize daily life so as to take full advantage of the disruptive option. Staying on top of and ahead of this digital migration of readers is a strategic imperative for all traditional news organizations.”
Regain pricing leverage by recreating community online. “Media companies who survive a disruptive innovation understand that there are basically two ways to gain pricing leverage with advertisers. One is to build a mass audience and provide reach (“eyeballs”). The other is to provide access to a highly desirable (affluent or young, for example) community or a well-defined one (that can be targeted along geographic or political boundaries). ...Part of the issue is that newspapers, especially, have thought of themselves as reaching a “general interest” audience, instead of a “special” interest group.
“...[Newspapers could totally reorient reporting: [for example,] there would not be one A-1 story on the current health care debate, but instead several, aiming at the special concerns of those various communities.”
Building new online advertising revenue streams. “Unless newspapers can replace the loss of whole categories of print advertising with new online advertising revenue, then the ambitions of news organizations will be limited.”
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Tags: business models, communities, advertising
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Any newspaper that survives the next ten years will have had to do some impressive innovating..
By BishopMarx, 11/15/10 at 5:08 am
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