Entries for month: September 2011
Can you exploit a 150-year head start in the media decathlon?
18 September 2011 · By Steve Nilan
At this summer’s World Masters Athletics Championships in California, I expected to see ex-athletes trying to relive their past glory in track and field. Instead I was awestruck to see 90-year-old men and women competing with the grit and muscle of true athletes.
It was inspiring to see the competitive fire driving more than 4,800 athletes from 93 countries to world records in age groups from 35 to 101 years old. They are champions and deserve our respect yet they could not compete head-to-head with world class athletes who are in their prime. These World Masters would need a huge head start to have any chance of medaling.
Our industry faces a similar competitive scenario. Newspapers built a big lead with a century-old brand and a dominant competitive spirit. Some would argue that we’ve squandered our head start to a generation of upstarts. Still, in most local markets, the daily newspaper maintains a market share lead over other media outlets. The market challenge remains: how can we build on our advantages and dominate?
If media competition could be compared to an Olympic event, what would it be? The marathon? The 100 meter dash? The decathlon? We have excelled at the slow but steady pace of the media marathon. After all, most dominant newspapers were founded more than 150 years ago and have enjoyed a long and profitable run. Now the rules of the game have changed forever.
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