
The hard truth: Newspaper monopolies are gone forever - jackyyappp
http://gigaom.com/2012/06/15/the-hard-truth-newspaper-monopolies-are-gone-forever/
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netcan
Douglas Adams, Wired, 1995 (I think) <http://yoz.com/wired/1.01/adams.html>:

 _..Over the last few years I've regularly been cornered by nervous publishers
or broadcasters or journalists or film makers and asked about how I think
computers will affect their various industries. For a long time most of them
were desperately hoping for an answer that translated roughly into 'not very
much'. ('People like the smell of books, they like popcorn, they like to see
programmes at exactly the same moment as their neighbours, they like at least
to have lots of articles that they've no interest in reading', etc.) But it's
a hard question to answer because it's based on a faulty model. It's like
trying to explain to the Amazon River, the Mississippi, the Congo and the Nile
how the coming of the Atlantic Ocean will affect them. The first thing to
understand is that river rules will no longer apply.._

 _..Television companies are not in the business of delivering television
programs to their audience, they're in the business of delivering audiences to
their advertisers. (This is why the BBC has such a schizophrenic time - it's
actually in a different business from all its competitors). And magazines are
very similar: each actual sale across the newsagent's counter is partly an
attempt to defray the ludicrous cost of manufacturing the damn thing but is
also, more significantly, a very solid datum point. The full data set
represents the size of the audience the publisher can deliver to its
advertisers..._

 _..Now I regard magazine advertising as a big problem. I really hate it. It
overwhelms the copy text, which is usually reduced to a dull, grey little
stream trickling its way through enormous glaring billboard-like pages all of
which are clamoring to draw your attention to stuff you don't want; and the
first thing you have to do when you buy a new magazine is shake it over a bin
in order to shed all the coupons, sachets, packets, CDs and free labrador
puppies which make them as fat an unwieldy as a grandmother's scrapbook. And
then, when you are interested in buying something, you can't find any
information about it because it was in last month's issue which you've now
thrown away. I bought a new camera last month, and bought loads of camera
magazines just to find ads and reviews for the models I was interested in. So
I resent about 99% of the advertising I see, but occasionally I want it enough
to actually buy the stuff. There's a major mismatch - something is ripe to
fall out of the model..._

Then he starts to go downhill in the same way that most people do/did when
they were framing the question wrong. DNA was the best at seeing if the
question was framed wrong, but even he apparently fell for it sometimes.
Basically he predicts unobtrusive, helpful ads on digital magazines & micro-
payments for content.

It's all very well to say that papers should have seen this all coming a long
time ago and we can have a great time talking about it. I think the reality is
that see it, don't see it.. it wouldn't have mattered in most cases. They
aren't Microsoft missing out on tablets carriage makers that should have
started making auto parts. They were horse breeders. The fanciest breeders
probably though they were safe at first. No Lady is going to travel to London
in one of those crazy horseless carriages. Local donkey breeders too.
Horseless carriages are hardly going to plow a field?

Content for readers was never the business they were in true. But it was
always their core competency. They were never experts in advertising that
could have figured out how to keep delivering to their real customers
regardless of the medium. Pre web print was a major channel through which one
can do quality advertising. Now it is a small channel that one can do poor
advertising, one step above mailbox spam. If you are _looking_ for a camera
you're not going to look in a magazine.

I've heard that the terms of this deal make the investment more like a loan.
Maybe it is. But if Buffet is buying these newspapers thinking they have a
long profitable future ahead, I think he's wrong. They're rivers in the ocean,
camel trains in the age of railroads, pick your metaphor.

------
_delirium
This is true for the current transition, I think, but historically it was only
a quite short period that newspapers had any sort of monopoly-esque hold over
particular geographical areas. The traditional business model didn't depend on
that; rather, there were many newspapers competing, even in smaller towns.

The competing-heterogenous-information-sources model discussed here is
actually closer to how the newspaper industry worked. Some of the competing
newspapers were large companies, others were smaller or even a single
editor/publisher; some were thick while others were barely a few pages; some
were dailies while others came out less often; some were morning papers, while
others came out in the afternoons or evenings; some relied primarily on
subscriptions while others focused on retail or street sales; some were
business-targeted while others were targeted at home readers, and still others
were targeted at explicit political/interest groups; etc.

------
rmason
None of my friends under forty subscribe to a newspaper. But they want to know
what is happening in their communities, they hunger for it.

Newspapers need to lose the national news, I don't need to read a story 24
hours after it has been disected on the web and cable channels.

I'd also say forget looking for a solution on the web. The answer is mobile
with a twitter style continously updating feed of local news and sports.

People don't have or won't take a half hour to read a newspaper but they've
got five minutes here and there throughout the day to see what is happening in
their local area.

Want total anonymity? Then you can subscribe. Willing to fill out a profile so
we can target ads, then your feed is free.

What advertiser wouldn't want to reach twenty something college educated women
in Podunk? Fewer, more targeted ads inserted in stream that get better
results.

~~~
jeffool
As someone who produced a local tv newscast for five years, I largely agree,
though not completely. You do need enough larger scope news for people to feel
informed and educated, but it's clearly a secondary concern, you're right.

If I had my way, we would have had subdomains on our site for both
geographical and categorical reading. Local tv news will always have SOME
appeal, but not because we're doing our job better than national networks, but
because we're local. It's amazing how many don't get that. Yes, Fox and CNN
are our competitors, but if local news wants a chance, we have to fight them
on our strengths. And it's the exact same with our websites and the websites
of any other news outlets.

... What a revolting development.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Sorry, what is revolting? And why?

~~~
jeffool
I find it really troubling that in a time when people want to be connected and
informed like never before (and have the technology to be so) so many in
smaller news organizations try to be every thing to all people, and end up
failing spectacularly trying to out perform larger operations at games the
larger operations are finely tuned for. Smaller outfits, especially those
limited in geographic area, should play to their strong suits. In this case,
they should do as much as possible about having LOCAL news.

Watch your local evening news, and if your station does the 5-6:30 model, it's
almost certain that the 5:30-6 section will focus on national news,
occasionally different anchors, and will have the lowest ratings. The three 30
minute sections' ratings usually follow this model: ¬_/

And news stations will tell themselves "Oh, we put national news in the middle
because it has low ratings." I get that if you're forced to play the short
view and juts have to fill time. But I do honestly think that if you put more
effort into that, over time, you could cultivate a worthwhile news show there.
Possibly even just make the 5-6 one hour, and use the expanded time to help
flesh out the rest of your stories and make them all run an extra minute
longer.

It's just as someone who's worked nearly all of my post-high school life
(being 31) in local news, it's always frustrated me how only a few hours a day
of local content are produced locally in most places. I think it's a vast
misuse (unuse?) of available resources.

------
lloydarmbrust
What newspapers have is the trust of a powerful local brand--even Google gives
local newspapers some of the highest PRs in these markets.

Smaller the market; better the brand. No one else has this and that's what
Buffet is buying.

If I'm a local SMB in a small town, chances are that I'm not going to trust
some big company with my SEM, SEO, retargeting, and Facebook ads. If local
papers can offer these services, they can win local in aggregate better than
any other company.

~~~
netcan
I was working in SEM, SEO, etc for small businesses when the transition away
from yellow pages was happening.

About 50% of our customers had at some point been with Sensis (The yellow
pages guys) or some other old media companies' attempt to start an online
advertising consulting branch. Clicks were cheap back then but they were
usually getting about $10 per visit in when the adwords rate was about $0.50.
They were on yearly packages attached to their print stuff but basically so
price wasn't really transparent but it was in the vicinity.

The reality is that these trusted local brands are good at running a local
newspaper. They are as good at running adwords campaign as they are at making
the next Facebook.

BTW, I would like to see where/if I'm wrong. Does anyone know of examples of
local old media with an awesome online presence for local stuff? I'm sure
there are some.

~~~
mkr-hn
<http://onlineathens.com/> and <http://www.athenstalks.com/>

The stats at the bottom of AthensTalks are fun to look at.

------
protomyth
What gets me is the number of times I look at the local newspaper and the
article about a local issue is written by a reporter from somewhere else. The
only reason to go to a news website is that you feel they are an authority on
a subject. The local paper needs to realize that their website and the local
TV station's website and the local news radio's websites are all the same
medium. They need to excel at putting down stories that go in-depth locally. I
will read national networks for national news.

You would think with how word heavy the internet has been, newspaper writers
would have thrived.

------
chrisennis
Classic case of an industry that has controlled the broadcast of content for
over a century and now they've lost control and can't seem to adapt. Music and
TV industries are in this boat too. We all know the music side isn't going to
end well for them and it looks like the TV thing won't either, although they
have been able to fend off change better than other industries.

------
draggnar
There aren't many "hard truths" in this world. I would say after reading this
article that newspapers have hit a bottom. Look at Warren Buffet's recent
investments. The future of paying for editorial, premium content is for
groundbreaking work (like NYT, WaPo, The Atlantic) and local. "Monopoly" is a
relative term, and what is and isn't a newspaper is changing, the real value
is the content.

------
technoslut
I can't necessarily disagree with Buffett's thought process here. Roger
McNamee may be right in that we are seeing a return of premium content due to
the monetization problems with mobile advertising and the consumer's dislike
of them. Of course, I do have my concerns with some like Mary Meeker whom
believe otherwise.

There are holes that aggregation sites like the Huffington Post simply cannot
fill and I do believe that consumers are looking for something more. It may be
because the they are becoming accustomed to paying for applications on mobile
devices.

------
elorant
Newspapers should move from reporting news to analyzing various issues. I
consider the German Die Zeit as a prime example of this model.

~~~
Ras_
Newspaper monopolies are local/regional and that is often not sufficient
market for an analyst magazine.

