The newspaper industry is having a torrid time of it. We must adapt or face decline, says Telegraph chief
CEO Murdoch McLennan said
The competition - not just from our traditional print rivals - is changing, growing and becoming fiercer. Readers are migrating online, and advertisers are following them. People are demanding customised news, wherever and whenever they want it. We have to adapt to these realities, or face a future of decline which goes to the very heart of our business. The competition - not just from our traditional print rivals - is changing, growing and becoming fiercer. Readers are migrating online, and advertisers are following them. People are demanding customised news, wherever and whenever they want it. We have to adapt to these realities, or face a future of decline which goes to the very heart of our business.As big as the challenges are, there are unparalleled opportunities, too. In a multimedia world, strong brands will flourish. And the Telegraph - with its hallmarks of honesty, integrity and reliability - is perfectly placed to become the digital market leader in news and comment.
There should be no limit to our ambitions, provided we embrace this sea change in the information society with imagination and determination. There should be no limit, either, to what our brilliant journalists and writers can achieve, with the unlimited space of the web - and other new platforms - at our disposal.
Something that Rupert Murdoch mused upon last year Big Media vs. The People. Rupert tells it how it is
In a excerpt from that speech, Rupert says
What is happening right before us is, in short, a revolution in the way young people are accessing news. They don’t want to rely on the morning paper for their up-to-date information. They don’t want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what’s important. And to carry the religion analogy a bit further, they certainly don’t want news presented as gospel.Instead, they want their news on demand, when it works for them. They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it. They want to question, to probe, to offer a different angle.
In the face of this revolution, however, we’ve been slow to react. We’ve sat by and watched while our newspapers have gradually lost circulation. Where four out of every five Americans in 1964 read a paper every day, today, only half do. Among just younger readers, the numbers are even worse, as I’ve just shown.
As we have often argued, until I feel I am blue iin the face newspapers and local newspapers can be and should be at the heart of the conversation.
The monetisation of this is a challenge, but if models can be developed that better serve advertisers and the newspaper readers in a digital world, perhaps some papers might be saved.
But I reckon we are going to see some national newspapers close. The division of journalism, the commercial arm and the technology department has to become more fluid. A digital strategy has to reside at the very heart of what newspapers do not at the periphary.
Digital natives are beginning to room this planet in increasing numbers... as Darwin said its not the strongest or most intelligent that survive. We all know how that sentence ends.
And boards only spend approx. about 3% of their time thinking about the future.
Seems like News International is the only organisation that is 'perfectly placed to take advantage..'. The others, Telegraph included, seem to think that all they have to do is write and make it available on the web.
I read this over on http://business-model-design.blogspot.com and I think it helps distinguish the McLennan & Murdoch views :
* bad communicators only talk
* good communicators are able to listen
* great communicators adapt to context
though I get the feeling I'm not telling you anything you didn't know already...
Posted by: Paul Jardine | October 03, 2006 at 10:50 AM
dear Paul,
thanks for the post. And I agree that adapt is a very good word here and so is context. it is without far more than just publishing online what you say in the paper.
lets see if anyone is listening
alan
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