Re-thinking publishing’s value circle to grow revenue
23 September 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
News publishers see revenue and profit expectations under-performing at an alarming rate.
While advertising revenues are in decline in some countries, they are under-performing growth expectations in other countries. For example, the American publisher that budgeted for 2% growth is seeing 10% declines. The Indian publisher that budgeted for 15% growth is seeing 10% growth.
The growth path for news publishers involves:
- A re-arranging of assets at their fingertips.
- The expansion of revenue streams.
- The cultural co-mingling of these streams.
Several publishers have lamented the long-term advertising contraction in this way: They can continue to scale their previously uncuttable newsrooms to the revenue realities. Yet at some point, the lack of financial returns and the tipping point of no longer being able to fund Big J journalism will force them to question why they own newspapers.
Let’s not get to that stage.
Here’s a suggestion: change the rules of what determines success by expanding where we drill for revenue. Let’s find new value in the assets we have or come up with a way to create scale in the acquisition of new assets.
...[more]New oxygen for the news industry: re-thinking value and skill sets
12 September 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
When asked what value a newspaper has to hotel guests, the audience of newspaper executives skeptically murmurs. Yet a hotel chain’s research — breaking down the individual pieces that come with a hotel room — surprisingly found a newspaper worth US$5 on its own — 500% more than the typical newspaper price. Subsequent research asking the newspaper’s value if it helps find a person a job found recipients said it was worth as much as US$2,000.
Paul Wang punches the air with numbers and ideas, exhorting the room of newspaper executives to see the customer’s view of value.
Value equals uniqueness + relevance + authenticity, the Northwestern University professor tells the Emailvision Roundtable audience in Vail, Colorado, on this late August morning.
He goes on, with a marketing politician’s wish-list:
- I want a database where people want in.
- We want to unite people to our storytelling.
- Database marketing is becoming less a chess game and more a ballroom dance.
- News publishers should become “contribution brands” that answer the question: What value can I add to my community?
As a room full of marketers, researchers and sellers sat mesmerized at Wang’s reminder of the basics of marketing, I couldn’t help but think that this is the kind of oxygen our industry needs.
...[more]Culture change is the conduit to a revenue growth story
24 August 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
I have come to view “culture change” at newspapers as equivalent to religion.
There are those who:
- Are fervent believers.
- Are tired of being preached to.
- Believe the message yet feel powerless to do anything with it.
- Don't view it as a proper subject in public settings.
So imagine my surprise last week, as I awkwardly danced around the subject among Australian publishers, to have the subject thrust at me with the emotion of another digit on a P&L.
The Australian publicly traded media sector peaked in early 2007, plummeted to new depths through 2009, went through a mild recovery through early 2010, and has since dropped to nearly penny status. By comparison, the U.S. peak was 2004.
Australian publishers shake their heads, throw up their hands, and roll their eyes at the helplessness of stock prices battered more by perception than reality. Lamented one executive: “We have become Big Tobacco.”
...[more]Why INMA will keep talking about culture change at newspapers
28 June 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
In thumbing through the evaluations from the recent INMA World Congress in New York, a comment from a U.S. attendee popped off the page that I, no doubt, took far too seriously: stop talking to us about culture change if it can’t affect my position back home.
The comment has gnawed at me for a month, and I need to stop biting my tongue and put in writing what’s on my mind.
Consider the facts in the national market the world thinks is either a leading indicator or an outlier to avoid, the United States:
- Newspaper advertising sales have declined for 18 consecutive quarters dating to 2005. Print advertising expenditures are at their lowest level since 1983.
- Paid circulation for daily newspapers has decreased every year since 1986. Circulation as a percentage of the population has decreased every year since the 1950s.
- Our industry’s response has been to cut people and newsprint, often without regard for priorities or the customer.
- The top publishers refuse to collaborate on anything meaningful such as industry innovation, incubation, or experimentation.
- When the analyst community five years ago gave publicly traded newspapers a green light to lower profit margins to heavily invest in digital, sales, marketing and research, publishers dabbled but mostly passed.
- The old beacons to whom we have turned in the past for inspiration and guidance — Editor & Publisher, Presstime, Deutsche Bank and other fantastic analysts who covered the industry — are all dead, dying, or irrelevant.
Revised Apple app subscription policy gives publishers pricing freedom
09 June 2011 · By Earl J. WilkinsonApple's relaxation of its app subscription policy allows publishers the freedom to price their suites of products as they see fit while rejuvenating the otherwise withering link to the iPad and iPhone.
That is INMA's conclusion from the sudden change in Apple's app subscription policy unveiled earlier today. The policy takes full effect June 30.
In typical Apple fashion, they have changed the rules — again — without explaining them. It took the trade press to uncover that a policy change had even been made. There is little evidence anything was communicated privately to publishers.
So, here is what we know:
...[more]Surprise theme emerges from New York World Congress: culture trumps strategy
22 May 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
The transformative theme that emerged from last week's INMA World Congress in New York is
that culture change trumps strategy for news publishers trying to turn the corner in their transition to becoming multi-media companies.
Confront the culture, and good things happen. Ignore the cultural element, and the most innovative strategy has no chance to succeed.
There were amazingly candid discussions sprinkled throughout the New York sessions about the newspaper culture. It wasn't planned that way, and it wasn't scripted. It emerged holistically from the presentations, the audience questions, and the impactful conversation among delegates and non-delegates via Twitter (#inmawc).
Nobody is doing culture change perfectly. Not the New York Times. Not Schibsted. Not the Wall Street Journal. Not the Financial Times. Not the usual list of media companies we tend to put on a pedestal.
While there were robust discussions of business models, strategies, growth opportunities, and ideas, the World Congress kept returning to the theme of culture change — our industry's stumbling block to fully realising its potential as multi-media companies. This discussion involved many nuances.
...[more]Howard Brown and his interesting story
29 April 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
Howard Brown died today at the age of 87 after a brief battle with cancer.
Beyond being the president of United Communications Corp. in the Midwest United States, Mr. Brown was INMA's longest-serving member. He joined INMA in 1962, making him a member for 49 years.
He was the 2005 recipient of the Silver Shovel Award, our association's highest honour for contributions to the association and the industry.
Looking beyond the biography, Mr. Brown was a courtly man with a genteel playfulness and a profound love of newspapers. He was quick with a tease and quick with the type-written notes of thanks — for a conference, for an article, for anything.
His intense and deep personal care for the people under his employ (his “family,” he called them) were tested deeply in the past decade as two economic downturns pushed the transformation of his company, like others, toward being less print and less populated with people. He knew what was right for business, but he agonized over the cost to people.
I got to know Mr. Brown late in life.
...[more]Can the Groupon model save newspapers?
31 March 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
Groupon is the No. 1 searched term at INMA.org this week — no surprise given the intense interest in the subject from members worldwide looking to partner or clone the programme.
Click here for everything we have on the subject.
Or if you prefer to a quicker visual of Groupon's impact, view the infographic below and share with your friends.
...[more]Bold business model changes propel Lebedev newspapers in London
30 March 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
What if you could add 675,000 print newspapers to your distribution at a time when other media companies are shedding print? That is the situation with Lebedev Holdings, the Russian owners of The Independent and the Evening Standard in London.
If you cut across case studies worldwide, you find that ownership/capital structure is a key differentiator in performance, innovation, and entrepreneurialism of news companies. Two struggling brands got plenty of rope to innovate when the Lebedevs bought The Independent from Independent News & Media and the Evening Standard from Daily Mail & General Trust.
I spent time recently with key executives inside The Independent and Evening Standard, as well as those who carefully watch their progress.
...[more]The hidden headlines of the Apple app subscription controversy
18 February 2011 · By Earl J. Wilkinson
Now that European publishers have put their exclamation point on the Apple app subscription controversy and Google has countered with its own service, let's add some colour to an otherwise black-and-white week. Allow me to flush out some nuances.
If you sort through yesterday's INMA meeting in London, the various public statements this week, and the like, here are some big headlines that fell through the cracks and didn't get reported:
Apple Hears Us, Has No Answers Yet: Apple didn't do enough due diligence with news publishers — certainly in comparison to Google. What I hear is that Apple executives are absorbing the publisher blowback, they want to address it, but they're floundering for answers.
Content Restrictions Key Point: The European publishers don't like the revenue split, the lack of transparency in the app review process, and the unwillingness to share data. Yet these pale in comparison to how livid they are about content restrictions which they're couching in press freedom terms. Cases commonly shared are newspapers whose apps were rejected because there were too many articles about the Android platform and because of “Page 3 girls.” To them, this is an American company applying American standards to their content.
...[more]
