Jay Parkhill March 17th, 2008
The headline here is direct from the SFGate.com article linked below. It isn’t exactly a revelation, but the article has some interesting tidbits- such as that print journalists are figuring out how to create audio and video news items, but the advertising departments haven’t caught up as quickly.
News media needs to have consumers pay
It is possible that I am part of the problem here. I ignore the ads on all the sites I visit as a matter of habit- i probably click on 1 in 1,000 or less.
I suspect most people are similar, which leads to the conclusion that new ad/revenue models are needed. But what should they look like? Hmm, I guess there’s a reason the advertising departments haven’t moved as quickly as the newspeople.
Or to paraphrase something my friend Chris said recently "content is pretty easy to develop, but revenue is fricking hard to come by".
Jay Parkhill November 9th, 2007
I probably watch about one hour of TV per week, but I still love Tivo since it means I can watch that one hour’s worth any time I want.
They just announced their own Nielsen-style viewer statistics package for advertisers. I suppose this shows how much I don’t know about broadcast media, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why they didn’t do this years ago. I know they have all the data on what Tivo users watch, so it seems like a no-brainer to put that data to work bringing in revenue for the company.
Side note to Mr. Tivo: please use the incremental revenue from this program to bring back the lifetime subscription. If you do that, even if it is only for a short-time promotion, I promise to buy a second box.
Jay Parkhill September 21st, 2007
The New York Times seems to have its head screwed on right as far online marketing goes. Witness its Facebook application: it’s a simple thing that shows off what the NYT does best (news coverage) and lets friends compete against one
another for “News IQ” ratings. To do well, one needs to read the news and the NYT provides ample opportunity to link through to articles on the paper’s site.
Add this to the company’s announcement that it is dumping the Times Select pay wall and one could almost forget what they are up against. I saw the graphic to the right and was blown away by the difference between on- and off-line ad revenue.
Something sure needs to change, or publishing (i.e. reading what’s actually happening in the world) as we know it is going to be completely screwed. Yikes.
Jay Parkhill September 14th, 2007
I’m really glad I’m not a print publisher. The Silicon Alley Insider posted an article the other day showing the New York Times Company’s 50% stock-price drop over the past five years. I understand this is largely due to the ad revenue they have lost to Craigslist and others.
The thing is that the NYT is doing everything right, or just about. They’re trying hard to play by new media rules, but the economics just aren’t there for the business. The Times produces great podcasts, seemingly dozens of blogs and has a Twitter feed that is one of the best things on that platform- news comes straight to my desktop throughout the day and the posts frequently get me to click through to the articles. The tweet format seems tailor-made for headline link-baiting.
Compare this with the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ has 3-times-daily updates over AIM, but they completely botch things. First, the updates comes three times every day, but it’s almost always the same stories in each update. Can’t they find more articles to showcase? They have a Twitter feed as well, but haven’t updated in months (ironically, they stopped with a headline about Google’s DoubleClick acquisition).
Worse, though, is that the content is stuck behind the paywall. I have given up linking through at this point because I don’t have a WSJ online subscription. If all I can get by clicking through is a couple of introductory sentences then it isn’t worth it- I’ll use the AIM headlines to let me know to read the details elsewhere. This comparison graph of NYT and WSJ pageviews (courtesy of Fred Wilson) seems to show that I’m not the only one.
Getting back to the original point, the NYT seems to do a great job driving traffic to the site, but online ad revenue just doesn’t compare to the old-fashioned offline kind. What’s going to happen? Will media-companies-formerly-known-as-print-publishers have to shrink to be competitive in the online world? Is that a workable model for companies that depend on far-flung networks of reporters, editors and staff? Or will some new revenue stream emerge to save them? Like I said, I’m glad I’m not in the business and these are not my problems to solve.