Wired has the story. Okay, it’s a small circulation title with legal listings. That does not diminish the significance of the move.
I first read this story about Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar somewhere else last month and thought it was not worth blogging about. Then, today, I heard Cemeron Reilly of the Podcast Network and James Farmer, the online Community Editor for The Age debating the role of ‘citizen media with Jon Faine on ABC local radio in Melbourne. Farmer was talking down the impact of online on mainstream media. Reilly batted well for the disruptors. Farmer would have us believe that most blogs are a waste of time and irrelevant. Traffic says otherwise. Feedback at blogs says otherwise. Blogs provide a better opportunity for transparent democracy than mainstream media could ever offer.
Mainstream media has lost its monopoly on access to the masses and it’s struggling to come to grips with that.
How we consume media is changing. In a small way I’m covering some the change in this blog – in the context of change impacting Australian newsagencies. There is no point resisting such inevitable and good-for-the-community change. Indeed, we ought to embrace it. The challenge is how we in small business deal with this when our suppliers do not adjust their behaviour.
Take computer magazines. Sales in the category are in free-fall. The top selling titles are doing okay but outside these five or six titles, everything else is in trouble. Newsagents are still being supplied at quantities reminiscent of the halcyon days. This is sucking their businesses of cash. Fixing the problem is taking newsagents away from adjusting their businesses elsewhere to address the challenge of consumers accessing online what they used to buy in a newsagency.
“Traffic says otherwise.” Are you kidding me?
theage.com.au is the number one News & Info publisher in Victoria – the smh.com.au in NSW.
The vast majority of people come to a few sites to get their media fox, listen to a few radio stations, watch a few tv channels and read a few publications… we are what’s commonly known as ‘geeks’ – most people are not.
But I’m interested in the traffic equation – bar search engine traffic (i.e. real readers rather than people grabbing bits of information) can you honestly back that up?
Yes James the Fairfax sites are generating exceptional traffic. This does not mean that blogs are a waste of time and irrelevant. Many are generating excellent traffic for their specialist interest areas.
Bah James, you know that argument of yours is a fallacy.
Here’s the facts:
1. Newspaper (print) circulation is down over the last five years (except regional papers).
2. Fairfax’s online sites don’t do nearly enough traffic to balance out the loss in revenue of the print decline – and never will – because they are competing with millions of other sources of content.
3. As over-all revenue decline, media companies will need to cut back on staff, further reducing the value of their content, which will further decrease their audience, etc.
The economics of running a newspaper business are in their last days. Bill Gates knows it, Warren Buffett knows it, Rupert Murdoch knows it.
Are you the only guy who doesn’t know it?
cheers
Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network (www.thepodcastnetwork.com) &
Host of Australia’s #1 podcast G’Day World (www.gdayworld.com)
Manual trackback 🙂
Hmm, you don’t allow a href… http://blogs.theage.com.au/media/archives/2007/02/not_dead_just_y.html
I don’t believe newspapers are on their last legs.
Sure, online news websites are a great way to keep up with the latest developments and many blogs offer insight and analysis that you don’t see in the papers. But I don’t think old media is going to be superseded any time soon.
Mainstream media are evolving, as evident by the Fairfax and News Ltd websites.
There still is going to be a market for newspapers and magazines. Indeed, you can access the online websites using wireless broadband on you way to work, but the size of mobile phone screens limits the appeal. Notebooks solve that problem, but they are cumbersome and only viable when you have a seat on public transport.
In keeping abreast of news in transit, old media wins.
In 15 or 20 years, if say high resolution flexible organic displays become cheap enough, this might change. But for ease of use, and minimal eye strain, nothing beats a newspaper.
Mark Cuban makes an excellent point regarding the limitations of online video:
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/07/14/broadband-video-is-overrated-too/
Australian’s we are in crisis right now where the federal minister can override the court’s criminal justice system and have the Indian doctoir in queensland indefinitely detained.
Its time we lobbied for a bill of rights in our Australian constitution.
No rights could mean jail for any who speak out!
Australian’s we are in crisis right now where the federal minister can override the court’s criminal justice system and have the Indian doctor in Queensland indefinitely detained.
Its time we lobbied for a bill of rights in our Australian constitution.
No rights could mean jail for any who speak out!
Australian’s we are in crisis right now where the federal minister can override the court’s criminal justice system and have the Indian doctor in Queensland indefinitely detained.
Its time we lobbied for a bill of rights to be incorporated into our Australian constitution.
No rights could mean jail for any who speak out!