A couple of days ago, Todd And â?? as part of the new Power Profile series over at Todd Andâ??s Power 150 Top Marketing Blogs â?? asked, â??How do you think newspapers will evolve over the next 15 years?â?
Since it was just one of 30 questions I answered, I thought Iâ??d expand on my answer here. Everything, as always, is up for debate. (BTW, I’ll let you know when my profile appears â?? thanks, Todd!)
So, how do I think newspapers will evolve over the next 15 years?
â?¢ Newspapers will be totally web driven, content will be pulled in by readers and the vast majority of advertising revenue will have to be generated online rather than from the print edition. Some sites are already doing this, making feeds available by topic or columnist. I see this becoming the norm â?? the trick will be how newspapers find ways to monetize these feeds.
â?¢ Readers will have more and more say in the content, generating it as citizen journalists and choosing the feeds they want to read.
A. Citizen Journalists will be invited to participate more and more as newspaper publishers realize that a) they can’t ignore this powerful source or real-time, on-site reporting and b) that they must find new ways to connect with and engage readers.
B. Feeds that are subscribed to in higher numbers will gain extra attention and editorial resources (to make them more attractive to advertisers). Making each topic available down to the most micro level will free up the newspaper to generate ad revenues Long Tail style.
â?¢ Print editions will become much smaller â?? to lower print costs and as a reflection of readership. Publishers will do so to deal with the rising cost of newsprint and consumer demands for them to consume less paper. Content in the print edition will become more essay style. After all, itâ??s easier to read long-form content in print than online.
Again, these are just my thoughts, starters for the industry. How do you think newspapers will evolve?
Related Stuff:
â?¢ Check out the first Power Profile, it features Darryl Ohrt from Brand Flakes for Breakfast.
â?¢ More newspaper debates: How to Sink A Newspaper, Newspapersaurous
â?¢ Newspaper online ad revenues are up, so thatâ??s a good sign.
UPDATE: Excellent post: “10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get through your head“. The title explains it all. Note to commenter Jamie: Point #3 is for you.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Interesting forecast. I get a bit concerned, though, with the idea of citizen journalists. The value of a good newspaper is not just that it reports news, but that it does so (hopefully) in an objective and accurate manner. Those qualities come from trained journalists and trained editors who oversee content for fairness and balance.
There’s a small weekly paper where I live. The paper prints virtually every news release it gets locally — typos and innacuracies often intact. They have two reporters who are paid by the word. They do report on stories the major county-wide daily (Gannett) doesn’t cover, which is good. But I frequently see glaring factual errors and blatant bias in the reporting.
Yes, citizen journalists can add to a paper’s coverage, but it must be carefully edited and monitored.
May 30th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I used to work as sales and marketing manager in a press agency. It was a short experience (I was fired, for the first and hopefully the last time in my life, after 6 months). The shareholders were the main Belgian medias (a lot of newspapers among them). They are really worried about their future.
My opinion is that: online is based on speed of publication. Newspapers owners will tend to publish as such the articles sent by their providers (Reuters, AP) and let the community organize the news. The next big thing will be a new way to document or tag the content feeds in order to offer intelligent aggregation (today the metadata on text news is pretty poor)
The newspapers will not be able (are not able) to provide fresh news to the internet population. They will have to find other means to sell the paper versions. Basically: less news and more magazine content.
By the way, I would be interested to read opinions about online strategies for magazines.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I agree with you for written content. Although I will say that areas where citizen contributors are supplying articles or posts should be raw content.
The advantage, of course, is allowing people to feel as if they’re on the scene, experiencing a moment/event/tragedy for themselves. Original footage of a recent tragedy here in Montreal helped CNN and many national news networks here have footage of the tragedy they otherwise wouldn’t have had.
It was powerful stuff.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Couldn’t agree with you more, Philippe, about magazine content. This is what I was getting at above when I talked about essay-style stories. The format is more conducive to reading offline than it is online.
Anyone have thoughts on the magazine industry they’d like to share?
May 31st, 2007 at 1:50 am
No thoughts on magazines, Mark - other than mine pile up faster than I can read them :) Newspapers? I always have something to add though I might be too biased and deep into the business. Its what I live and breathe. Its refreshing to see your thoughts about newspapers evolving. Your love for medium shines through. So far as citizen journalists - reporters have relied on citizens for a very long time. And many newspapers - or off shoots like David mentions - have sections written by citizens. Will they replace trained reporters and journalists? Possibly but a great deal of balance will be lost. I think you’re right on with part B and feeds. The rub right now is advertisers recognizing the value of web messages. Nobody seems able to monetize it - at this moment. Most of the dollars come from upsells or add-ons to the advertisers print budget. I do, however, believe this monetization will be in the next 15 years (pure speculation). And it likely has something to do with metadata Phillipe references - I don’t understand how all that works. The day of Extra! Extra! Read all about it is gone - pixels on screen happen too fast. Information moves at ever increasing speed. So far as smaller size - its already happening. Most (if not all) papers have gone to a small web. Many in Europe (Phillipe can verify) are in a tab format which is even smaller. You make a great point about format and ease of reading.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:36 am
Excellent POVs, Bob. Would like to clarify my position on Citizen Journalists: I view them as an addition to the offer, not ever there to take the place of the trained and seasoned professionals charged with writing newspaper content.
However I do believe that the spirit of those in the business must change â?? like yours has. There needs to be better recognition of the value brought by citizens, bloggers and other new sources of material. Even if it’s just to gain a wider perspective, this, I believe, is a must.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:58 am
I believe that I had expressed this opinion on this site before, but am always happy to repeat myself!
My vision for newspapers is of the news being secondary to the editorial and commentary sections of the paper. In an age where by the time the paper hits your doorstep/newsstand the news is old news, newspapers will have to give readership another reason to read.
Editorials, columns and special sections will dominate. The best newspapers will be the ones who manage to corral the most interesting and compelling writers. Hire business leaders with vision to write columns for the business section, people involved directly in the arts for th entertainment section, etc. etc.
These people will have to be relevant, known, and insightful. In short, my vision is that newspapers will be written by news makers and not news tellers.