Hyperlocal News Was Supposed to Thrive -- But Now It's Not. So What Happened?

Several years ago, as regional newspapers began shutting down in droves, the smart money was that hyperlocal media would not survive, it would thrive. As we wrote in  "The Prospect for Hyperlocal Continues to Look Good -- But Can It Capture the Ad Market?" back in 2009!, the reason was "because while there will always be sources for national news, people still want local news."

Many top national media wrote about the gleaming prospects for hyperlocal media. For example, Fast Company wondered: "Can Anyone Tap the $100 Billion Potential of Hyperlocal News? Community-driven news services have been the next big thing online for years. Can The New York Times or AOL find the $100 billion local-advertising pot of gold?"

So we weren't alone in thinking that hyperlocal would survive a meltdown among local media. After all, there are many competing sources for local and regional news but generally only one voice for hyperlocal media.

(By the way, it's worth pointing out that the subhead in the Fast Company article references AOL -- as an example of how much may have changed since 2009.)

We have a nonprofit client for whom hyperlocal is critically important to their work so we've been paying close attention. Over the past year, there's been a lot of cutbacks in hyperlocal media. The problem isn't interest in or support of hyperlocal media from readers. In many cases, the subscribers still want hyperlocal news but the economics outside the community remain terrible.

That's in part because newspaper chains like Gannett borrowed billions to acquire hyperlocal media to generate growth only to find out they had taken on too much debt and needed to make cutbacks.

Lots of cutbacks. According to a Boston Business Journal article, "Northeastern professor Dan Kennedy... referred to the latest round of layoffs as a ‘bloodbath.’ The company has closed at least 19 Greater Boston weeklies this year and has replaced much of the local coverage with regional stories."

The BBJ further noted "80 terminations across more than 50 newsrooms — but the full picture of what local readers across the country lost has yet to emerge."

19 community weeklies closed = news deserts?

That doesn't include layoffs at other hyperlocal papers, which has led to fewer reporters having to cover larger territories. That has led to fewer hyperlocal news and feature articles, which have been replaced by regional trend articles. A recent example: a look at the wobbly post-COVID locally owned restaurant market (as opposed to fast food chains) actually didn't quote any hometown restaurateur; instead, the article provided quotes from owners from several different communities -- some of them that may be an hour away. While the article was still interesting, it was not hyperlocal. The benefit for the editors is that that single regional article was published in different hyperlocal papers. That's how understaffed newsrooms can continue to publish news. It's just not hyperlocal news.

And that means that communities are not getting the kind of hyperlocal information they want or expect.

They've been what's been called "news deserts," defined by the UNC School of Media and Journalism's Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, as "a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level." News deserts are a problem because it means communities aren’t getting critical information related to civic life, government services, etc.

Once limited to rural communities, news deserts now include suburban communities and even larger cities where alternate weeklies have closed, affecting large parts of those communities.

The reason this is significant is that hyperlocal newspapers support their communities, the businesses and the nonprofits, the students and the seniors -- it helps bind communities. 

Here's an example of how this plays out using Marblehead, the North Shore community in which we've maintained our global world headquarters because we've experienced some of the problem of a news desert.

We've been served by the Marblehead Reporter, a print weekly that has become thinner, with less hyperlocal coverage. Please keep in mind: we're not blaming editors or reporters; they're working under difficult conditions; but we do blame Gannett and hedge funds like the Alden Group that purchase newspapers and extract value while decimating the newsroom and the quality of the product.

We're also served by the Marblehead Patch, which seems to produce one actual news story about the community per day but does a better job of sending alerts than the Marblehead Reporter. The the email newsletter from the Patch makes it seem like there's a lot of new content but most of the newsletter features regional coverage. The Patch is good about fires, school closings, etc. -- which is useful information but we don't recall seeing a lot of articles that requires in-depth reporting about issues affecting the town. That would be information residents can't get elsewhere. (We can get school closing information from Boston TV stations, which post that information on their websites.)

With fewer hyperlocal news articles, residents tend to feel less connected. It also means that the paper is less important because some readers figure they don't need to read it closely because there's less info about the town -- replaced by more content about other communities (that they don't have time to visit). 

As a result, Marblehead has three new initiatives to build hyperlocal media outlets. We hope they take hold but there are issues with all three.

• Marblehead Weekly News, which is published by Essex Media Group, which publishes the Daily Item of Lynn, Lynnfield Weekly News, Peabody Weekly News, and other local media. It is staffed by reporters who also work on other Essex Media properties. We've seen one print edition, mostly focused on the upcoming primary so it's too early to judge. One problem is that there's not a website yet for the publication, just a weekly print edition. So there's currently nothing available at MarbleheadWeeklyNews.com. There's also not even a listing for the Marblehead Weekly News on the Essex website's listing of its various properties. We're sure that will happen. The weekly also includes some sports and features on the "Historic Building of the Week"; in a town with a starling number of pre-Revolutionary homes, the first choice was a local movie theater. On the other hand, the Marblehead Weekly News has brought out the Police Blotter, something the Marblehead Reporter used to publish and seemed to be quite popular (because the items reported included a report of spilled Cheerios in front of the Post Office). But, so far, and it's early yet -- no real news coverage.
• Meanwhile Marblehead News has an actual website. But it may not have a name because it posted an item in June 20, 2022 that it's crowdsourcing for a permanent name. Which is a good thing. We found it only because we were searching for Marblehead Weekly News and found them instead. Most of the news currently available on the site is campaign statements. Plus one article about the local movie theater -- we don't know who's handling its PR, but kudos! One thing that makes Marblehead News interesting is that two of the founding staff formerly worked for the Marblehead Reporter so we think that's a good sign because they know the town and they know journalism. But it's also a nonprofit that will try supporting itself by raising donations. Also, it seems like a part-time gig for them, and we don't blame them because they're taking on a risk  by working on this at all.  
• The third new outlet is called the Marblehead Beacon, which also launched in June 2022, and is run as a "citizen-based news site." As of press time (this article was written a couple of weeks before the updated blog and website were finalized), because the Massachusetts primary are a week away, the Beacon has a lot of content about local candidates. While we're hopeful about the Beacon, it is run by two businesswomen with limited journalism experience and other business interests along with a high school student who is handling technology (as one might expect). 

When we started thinking about this blog, we did not realize there were three news startups trying to provide a variety of print and online news for a community of some 20,000 residents. That's kind of a problem since we're media junkies who live in the community -- so we know they're not having significant impact yet. But we hope that will change.

Right now, political candidates are getting the most attention but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will the Marblehead Reporter respond, and if so, how? (We assume the Patch won't be able to.) And we don't know how closely part-time journalists will be able to cover the community news and issues beyond fires, roadwork/construction issues, etc.   

We're using Marblehead as an example but there may be similar efforts in other local communities. And we're not necessarily endorsing one of these outlets over another but we want them all to succeed in finding an audience and delivering news. Our point here is to continue a discussion about hyperlocal news sites and news deserts.

Let us know what you think about news deserts and news startups in your communities. 

6 Challenges Facing Local Newspapers

Last year, we talked about "Five Challenges Affecting Local TV News." And last month, we talked about the challenges facing digital media ("BuzzFeed, Gannett, HuffPo All (Unfortunately) Validate Our Prediction About Media Layoffs.") This  week, we will look at problems facing local newspapers.

Unfortunately, there's a lot to talk about.

Last week, a newspaper holding company with an unlikely name, Tronc, provided more evidence that local newspapers are facing tough times.

Tronc stands for Tribune Online Content, and it is the country's third-largest newspaper publisher (behind Gannett and McClatchy) and owns 11 daily newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and the Orlando Sentinel. (In June, Tronc sold off the LA Times for $500M.), And last week, Tronc fired 50 percent of the staff of the New York Daily News and staffers at its other papers due to what its CEO said were because "As a public company, we have a fiduciary obligation to balance the interests of all of our constituents: shareholders, employees, readers and community."

Death by a Thousand Cuts?

An Axios article on the topic quoted The Washington Post's Paul Farhi as noting "the NYDN employed 400 journalists in 1988. After a layoff last year, it will 'have a newsroom staff of just 45, according to people at the paper.'"

It's hard to imagine even the Daily News -- perennially described as "scrappy" -- being able to cover the city that never sleeps with just 45 reporters. Or how the Daily News can survive against the New York Post, its longtime tabloid rival.

A number of journalism experts say problems started before Tronc acquired the Daily News (for only $1 in 2017 -- basically the newsstand cost of a single copy of the paper in 2016 -- along with an assumption of liabilities and 49 percent stake in property where the Daily News' printing plant is located. But things got worse after Tronc's purchase, described as ownership without strategy and that Tronc made (and continues to do so) by "making the product worse while making the public pay more."

Problems Facing Local Newspapers

in Tronc's case, some blame incompetent owners who took on too much debt through acquisitions and consolidation. This is a real concern as media giants are merging (AT&T-Time Warner; Disney-Fox, and Sinclair-Tribune -- the former parent company of what became Tronc), with the possibility that the acquiring companies may be taking on too much debt.

Beyond possibly incompetent owners, the main threats to local newspapers include:

1. Falling ad rates: The common saying is that publishers are replacing print dollars with digital dimes because online ads generate a fraction of the fees charged for print ads. So even if a newspaper retails the same number of advertisers who purchase the same number of ads, digital ad rates are much lower so newspaper revenue will drop. For example:
• For example, according to the MinnPost, a nonprofit local news site, "In 2011, newspapers lost about $2.1 billion in print advertising. Meanwhile, their digital advertising grew by about $207 million. In other words, they lost $10 in print ads for every new dollar of digital ad money.
2. Growing reliance on news aggregators and social media: Quality journalism remains expensive to produce but 67 percent of Americans get at least some of their news from social media, according to a Pew Research study. And growing numbers of us access news via Google News and Apple News, which provide free (or low-paying) access to news reported by a third-party. So even if online readership is up, some outlets are seeing revenue drop. Another problem: readers begin to rely on news aggregators instead of the news sources, making it harder for local newspapers to form strong relationships with their readers. 
3. Readers of Print newspapers (instead of online news sites) are getting older. The population of readers who rely on the printed paper is getting older while younger generations are more comfortable accessing news online for free. Newspapers need to find a way to make themselves relevant enough so that younger readers will pay for access. While the New York Times and Washington Post have seen a surge in online advertising, those two papers are exceptions because of how they've been covering national political news.
4. Smaller staffs means smaller papers and less ad space to sell. Do you see where this is going? Cutting back the size of the paper or the frequency of publishing a printed version of the paper means that publishers sell less advertising, so ad revenue continues to drop, which leads to more newsroom layoffs, and a worse product. This is a death cycle for local papers. 
5. Declining credibility. Right now, the entire journalism sector faces a tough time as credibility of the news is being questioned. But newspapers with smaller staffs won't be able to adequately cover their markets. That means they will be publishing a product offering declining value. Under those conditions, circulation and ad rates generally fall.
6. No strategy to sustainability. The long-term business model has shifted, and no one yet has found a replacement business model that will return local news to profitability. (The Daily News reportedly lost an average of $30M over the last three years, according to the New York Post, including due to circulation declines.) The one strategy that seems to be working for the Washington Post and the LA Times is to have billionaire owners who see the important of keeping newspapers running, and can afford to do so. But there are only so many billionaires who see the value of keeping local papers around. 

The real problem is that local newspapers serve as a check-and-balance of local government and we need local oversight of government.

Some cities are seeing the rise of nonprofit news sites (like MinnPost) and others. But some are very small operations; and you can't effectively cover a big city with just two reporters/bloggers. (In some cases, these bloggers are not much more than citizen journalists, without real journalism experience.) 

So what's the solution?

In an article entitled, "Who suffers when local news disappears," The Cumbia Journalism Review says, given declining resources, the quality of local papers will decline so much that:

At some point not terribly far in the future, even those of us who believe powerfully in the need for a vibrant local news landscape are going to be hard pressed to make a case that many of these outlets should be saved.

For much of this decade, no one has been able to develop a true workable solution. Readers' relationships with their local papers and with journalism in general has changed. And, as with the coal industry, there's no turning things back to how things used to be. 

Certainly newspapers -- as with all news operations -- need to figure a way to ensure they publish quality journalism, coverage that is credible and compelling, and available across different channels (print, online, text, video, social). But they also must find ways to charge for access. A number of top news sites provide access to a limited number of articles per month, so when readers hit the limit, they may be inclined to subscribe. Right now, readers seem to wait out until the next month.

Sustainable local newspapers is important for journalists and good government. But it's also important for marketers, who need credible vehicles through which to communicate their messages.

Five Challenges Affecting Local TV News

A couple of years ago, the demand for hyperlocal information as well as the recognition of marketers that were willing to pay to reach a hyperlocal audience  was seen to be a boon for local media. The trend indicated hyperlocal media would generated more eyeballs and receive more marketing dollars.

Unfortunately, while there's still strong demand for hyperlocal news, local print and broadcast news outlets are facing challenges. 

For local papers, one previously unanticipated problem was the dependence on advertising from local retailers. The retailpocalypse, which describes the sector's meltdown resulting in the shuttering of hundreds of stores (likes Sears, K-Mart) or the bankruptcies of entire chains (Toys R Us, Bon-Tons), has also resulted in a significant drop in local newspaper  advertising. So we've seen local newspapers shrink in size or close. 

It's gotten to the point that Dr. Michelle Ferrier at Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University has developed an interactive map called The Media Deserts Project to "identify areas that lack access to fresh, local news and information. We map layers of daily newspaper circulation, hyperlocal online news sites and other emerging media to identify underserved and underrepresented communities." The vast majority of the country, according to the research, has 0-2 daily newspapers -- and this incudes large cities. New Jersey (is) poised to invest $5 million into local journalism to shore up local reporting.

So local newspapers have to find new ways to get the money necessary to sustain their local journalism. That may mean experimenting with new business models.

Meanwhile, while local TV news may not have been as vulnerable to the loss of retail advertising. they face a different set of challenges. Unlike local news, one of the fundamental challenges to local TV news is the product itself.

1. Local TV news programs compete not only with other local TV news but also with social media. Competition for local broadcast used to be between ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. Now it's from Twitter and Facebook. So news departments are very well aware their competition has expanded significantly. It also means that local TV news is more inclined to broadcast clickbait stories that are quick and easy to tell, rather than more meaningful news that may have more impact on the community.
   


2. They typically have more hours to fill but not more resources. A generation ago, the local news had two broadcasts at 6pm and 10pm or 11pm. These days, local news may air at 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm plus 10pm or 11pm. Unfortunately, news departments haven't gotten larger to help cover more news. So reporters have to repeat the news on different programs, producing a segment at 5pm and another segment offering a different take on the same story at 6pm. Or they have to find two stories, one to tell at 4pm and another at 6pm -- which means they don't have much time to develop either story.


3. Reporters are pushed to post their stories on social media, too. Sometimes the people who are scooping the 6pm News are the reporters themselves who are incentivized to push content out via social media. (Station bosses look at the number of followers for each reporter, the amount of engagement, etc.) So you can see behind-the-scenes aspects of the day's story on their Twitter or Facebook feeds. (These posts often include links back to the station's website.) So while they're putting together a package to be broadcast, reporters also have to keep in mind how to tell the story effectively via social. 


4. Broadcast reporters must be multimedia-friendly. They produce their package, then Tweet about it, then write up a text article for the website,  and then also produce a video that has photos and captions but perhaps no actual footage of the reporter. That last format is ideal for commuters who want to watch video but don't necessarily want audio to accompany it because it's noisy on the subway or commuter rail.


5. The tail wagging the dog is views, likes and clicks, not policy stories. The slogan for local news used to be "If it bleeds, it leads" the broadcast. While that's still the case, story selection is often based on what will get the most viewership, not necessarily what news will affect the community. This result: the further clickbait-as-news that is shorter, cuter, fluffier -- which many reporters don't like but must follow. The more significant kind of news takes more time to research, develop and tell -- and reporters don't have much time; they've got overwhelming and competing demands placed on them. 

There are structural issues facing local print and TV news, and local outlets have to evolve with the times -- and this has been going on, in one form or another since the early 1980s, setting up 1987's "Broadcast News." But this post is in no way trying to blame reporters, producers or assignment staffs. Their jobs have gotten tougher -- no question. 
The intent is provide consumers of local TV news with a sense of what's driving the type of coverage being produced, and to keep that in mind when they watch, read or "like" a segment. It's also to help businesses think about how they approach local TV news if they want to get coverage. 

Let us know if you think we got this wrong or if you have insights into how local media can address the challenges they're facing.

Ongoing Trends for 2018

Not all significant trends next year will be new ones.  We always look at ongoing trends that will continue to impact the media, marketing and tech worlds.

The first 14 of the 18 trends listed below include an explanatory sentence. The final four are, we feel, self-explanatory.

1.  The news cycle will continue to speed up. There were days in which there was major news several times a day. We expect that to continue in 2018 – and that when there’s a slow news day – let’s say only one big news story – consumers of news anxiously click on refresh, thinking they must be missing some additional news. Regardless of political views, people, including late-night comedians are finding this exhausting.

2.   2018 will be tough for traditional and online media. We hate writing this but the layoffs and shutdowns affecting traditional print (Boston Herald) and cool online outlets (BuzzFeed) that occurred the last two months of 2017 will continue in 2018. Despite living in a time when staying on top of the news (throughout the day) has never been more important, with more people than ever following hourly developments, fewer people seem to want to pay for the news. This is true also for hyperlocal media (like DNAInfo and Gothamist, both shutdown), which for a time was considered to be an exception since people seemed to favor local news about their communities that weren’t getting covered by regional or national media. Great reporting takes lots of effort and resources (as does debunking fake news, as the Washington Post showed us when it reported on a failed attempt to offer a false narrative by the Veracity Project). The problem for traditional and online news sources is, increasingly, Americans turn to social media for news. So traditional and even online media need to develop a new advertising and subscription business model. So far, great journalism is helping the New York Times and Washington Post attract and retain subscribers. But it must be frustrating for them to see hat purveyors of true “fake news” (those that are not based on facts and don’t correct mistakes once they learn of them) can generate tens of thousands of page views when real, serious news doesn’t get clicked.  Another aspect that will affect traditional and online media will be if either or both of the AT&T-Time Warner and Sinclair Broadcasting-Tribune Media deals go through.

3.  Fake news won’t fade in 2018. It’s still easier and more lucrative to generate totally fake news than it is to produce real, fact-based news. Some players are doing this for financial gain and others for a different, more sinister reason, and we expect both to continue in 2018. If Facebook, Google and Twitter all have trouble dealing with the fake news scourge, how will regulations and Congress be able to solve what the social media giants can’t? (For more on this, check out "Why the Fact-Checking at FB Needs to Be Checked: Some measures may not work all that well.") 

4.  Cord cutting will continue but still won't save money: Streaming will continue to be popular but consumers will at some point realize they are not saving money. There will be more streaming services, making it complicated to watch what you want on your TV (remember those?) and you’ll still have to open different apps to find the movie or TV show you want to watch.

5.  Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality still won’t be everywhere. Both VR and AR are making progress but neither is there yet.

6.  IoT will continue to be victim to cyberattacks. We think there will be more IoT cyberattacks, as IoT and Smart Homes go mainstream. Perhaps the only advantage of having to get up and walk over to a light switch is that hackers can’t hack your home.

7.  The future is still looking cloudy. This may be the one tech trend that has yet to experience a backlash.

8.  Driverless cars attract significant coverage. There’s lots of interest in driverless cars because driving is such a part of the American persona. While there’s been great momentum forward, we’re also seeing new challenges that need to be addressed: insurance-related, business model, infrastructure, and tech issues. Do you need Uber and Lyft if you can own or rent a driverless car? If you can rent, why do you need to buy a car? If Uber and Lyft deploy driverless cars, what happens to their former drivers? Meanwhile, we’re also seeing a push for electric cars; China announced plans to eliminate all new combustion cars and trucks by 2030 so we expect to see the rest of the world to follow, which one challenge being ensuring there are enough charging stations.

9.  There's never enough cybersecurity/privacy. There’s still not enough of either. The European Union has proposed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to strengthen and unify data protection for individuals within the EU but it also will affect companies outside the EU. So expect that U.S. companies will need to look at and evaluate how to meet GDPR.

10. NFL ratings will continue to decline. We don’t know whether it’s because of too much football (we’ve never liked Thursday night games) or because of severe injuries or because of the protests but we expect this to continue.

11. Corporate boycotts & consumer boycotts will continue. These are boycotts by companies in order to demonstrate distance from controversial programs and personalities. We also expect boycotts of companies that are boycotting those controversial people and programs.

12. Drug pricing will continue to get a lot of attention. But there won’t be an easy solution so don’t expect much except outrage.

13. Wearable tech will still not be as mainstream as people in the industry were hoping. But wearable will make quiet inroads so that before you know it (probably not in 2018, though), lots of things will have built-in technology.

14. STEM will continue to be important. With a looming labor shortage (in some fields), businesses are looking for employees with a firm grasp of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). We think funding for STEM will continue to keep U.S. businesses competitive.

15.   3-D content, 3-D TV and 3-D printers will still not be as popular as they are cool.

16.   Artisanal will still be a hot concept.

17.  e-Wallets still will gain traction in 2018 but mostly for Millennials as opposed to their parents.

18.  Content management remains king.  

Wall St. Journal to Launch NY-Metro Edtion

The Wall St. Journal has announced another front in its battle against the New York Times: a local section for New York, to be launched in April. The new section has been an open secret for months now, but the WSJ announced it officially this week, here.

The new section will appear six days a week, include 16 pages of content and ads, and cover state and local politics, business, culture, sports and real estate. About 35 reporters and editors will be assigned the new section, which will be available with subscriptions to the greater NYC area and available online.

No word yet on the reporters now assigned to the section.

Our Track Record on 2009 Predictions

A lot of organizations issue predictions without looking back to see what they got right and what they, um, didn't. We decided to take a look at the predictions we issued in Jan. 2009, Top 14+ Media Trends for 2009.

We did pretty well with those predictions:

• We were right in saying we need a new term for newspaper once they stop printing on paper. However, our designated term "newssites" has not taken off.
• We were (sadly) correct that a lot of print newspapers and magazines would shift to online-only in 2009. And we were right that some papers would rely more on charts, rankings and shorter articles to mimic online media while magazines would print thinner editions. And, as predicted, last year saw fewer magazine launches than prior years.
• We saw more media layoffs in 2009, including cuts hitting online newsrooms. And we expected stringers and citizen journalists to contribute more content to mainstream media, which is a bit difficult to prove. Meanwhile, the New York Times got in trouble with its own ethics rules in working with some freelance reporters for potential and actual conflicts of interest. This seem to crop up with travel reporters for the Times' Sunday Travel section; that's not surprising because freelance travel writers often accept freebies to be able to afford to travel around the world. Accepting freebies, even for stories not published by the Times, goes against Times policy, and we think that's a bit of a mistake -- the Times isn't willing to offer these freelancers full-time positions yet expects them to live by the same rules as full-time Times staffers who get the benefit of a Times expense account and a Times' salary.
• We were right that hyperlocal media continues to be important. But dozens of local suburban weekly newspapers also closed last year -- so as a strategy, a hyperlocal approach can not save papers from poor business decisions (i.e. debt load) of their parent companies.
• Local TV did indeed hit a bumpy road, especially local affiliates of NBC -- not that we predicted the Leno experiment.
• Twitter did become more prominent, with mainstream references to it.
• Our prediction that people would start suffering from SNF (Social Networking Fatigue) -- did not happen in general last year. However, a few celebrities -- including Miley Cyrus and Ricky Gervais, who otherwise seem unlikely to share a point of view -- indeed seemed to be suffering from SNF, getting attention for quitting Twitter.
• We were right that online reputation management would continue to be important. That will continue in 2010, too, though some companies still don't get it.
• We got right some of the new features in Kindle 2.0, and were right that 2010 will be a bigger year for ebooks. Amazon sold a larger percentage of electronic books during the 2009 Christmas season than in the prior year.
• We're pleased that the New York Times survived 2009. We were right that the Times would not sell the Boston Globe.
• Rupert Murdoch did make more changes to the Wall St. Journal in 2009, but has not "tarted" it up. Yet.
• As for the AP and changes to its model, pricing, etc., that's still too early to call. It did not happen in 2009, but it will come.

Now, if only the economy had been better...

The Prospect for Hyperlocal Continues to Look Good -- But can it capture the ad market?

As print media continues to shed reporters and readers, the hyperlocal continues to show potential. That's because while there will always be sources for national news, people still want local news.

The problem for marketers is that there may be too many hyperlocal sites online and those sites don't generate mass-market traffic, making for a very fragmented user base. Targeting hyperlocal blogs and sites can be a great way to generate coverage, but it takes more effort to reach the many hyperlocal sites, and those sites reach a smaller group than maligned print media.

In an interesting story, "Can Anyone Tap the $100 Billion Potential of Hyperlocal News?," Fast Company looks at the problem from an advertising perspective -- that's the $100B in question.

What's interesting about news by search engine is that it has enabled users to select the news that interests them, which is a far less worthy slogan than the Times' "All the news that's fit to print." (Will the Times have to update its slogan to "All the news that's fit to text?")

While a lot of people consider it to be better, news by search engine (NBSE) actually destroys substantial value. By way of example, the Boston Globe was worth $1.1B when the Times bought it a decade ago. But now the Times can't even give away the paper, despite the fact that it's the market leader, is nationally known, wins journalism awards, etc.

The bottom-line is that hyperlocal should survive, but it won't pick up all the advertising dollars that no longer go to print.

I'm not sure where that money will go, but I do know that's bad news for traditional journalism even as its practiced online. Fully researched journalism takes time, resources and money, and without subscription fees and without advertising support, only a few outlets will be able to maintain journalistic standards.

Some colleagues and clients have been talking about the implications of that. It is in the interest of PR functions that journalism maintains its credibility. I'm going to explore this further in future posts. Let me know what you think.

Some thoughts on hyperlocal media & the nature of PR

I had an interesting conversation on Twitter with Todd Pipitone, aka tjpip on Twitter, a marketing coordinator handling PR, social media, and marketing for a nonprofit. He's also a local newspaper reporter.

Responding to a previous blog post, that pointed out that the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer was a PR executive and that experience hasn't turned out well (since the paper is in bankruptcy), Todd wrote, "What if PR folks started online localized news site & then published paper?"

I thought that was an interesting question.

Especially since the PR industry is being impacted by the huge shock waves impacting print journalism.

So did Todd think that PR folks could start their own news sites as a a way to reach new clients? Or to communicate messages via a new channel? Either way, how would such a news site pay for itself?

Todd responded, "That is the kicker. I'm thinking it would have to be free, but ads? Also possible subscription? Are blogs filling the gap now?"

Blogs may be filling the gap -- although not in covering mundane but important things like town meetings.

And even if blogs do fill the gap, few blogs can cover everything a newspaper has covered, making it more difficult to find information in one place. And that makes it more difficult to reach people, especially as they are searching for exactly what they want while ignoring even scanning headlines of other news that may impact them -- but they won't know about it in a search-focused world.

One challenge will be that we're seeing the fragmentation of communication channels, and that increases noise. Todd suggests, and I agree with him, that the "time is ripe to provide it all in one spot again on hyperlocal level."

In fact, an opportunity may exist in tapping local pride, if marketed correctly, "similar to what happens on college campuses with their paper" and how the subscriptions are sold to alumni."

I agree. I think to succeed with hyperlocal will mean rethinking the value that readers want. But personalized news readers have not taken off as a true replacement. Clearly an answer has yet to come.

WSJ Article Validates Another of Our Media Predictions for 2009: rocky time for local broadcast

The Wall St. Journal ran a fascinating look at the impact of the current media environment -- declining ad dollars and users (formerly known as viewers) fleeing to the Internet.

Check out "Local TV Stations Face a Fuzzy Future as Revenue Declines" by Sam Schechner and Rebecca Dana.

The TV/broadcast environment is changing, just as mainstream media everywhere is. One difference is that the business model for TV is the same as news on the web: it's been free, supported by advertising. So for users stuck in front of the laptops, why not just access TV shows online?

But that move is having a big impact local broadcasters. If you can get network shows online, why tune in with your TV?

The article suggests that some on-air networks will switch to cable because they can get a piece of the subscriber fees even during a drop in advertising. Since most of use already use cable boxes and since the rest will have to get digital converters, users may not feel much impact -- except to see their cable bills increase. Which is not a surprise.

Still, the impact on local market TV is that there won't be much local programing.

Check out the article; it's worth reading.

Hyperlocal is the new local -- Part II

As I've mentioned before, local coverage continues to be the name of the game for regional news organizations.

But yyperlocal will evolve in 2009, with news about communities operating within a local market being the forefront of hyperlocal coverage.

Local competition in the online space will heat up. Circulation figures for local weeklies probably will remain stable, but online competition will increase. In New England, Boston.com is competing more aggressively with Gatehouse Media’s WickedLocal.com – to the extent that the latter is suing the former for having too many pointers on Boston.com to WickedLocal.

Top 14+ Media Trends for 2009

At the start of each year, we look at the media trends that we think will have the most impact. Here's our list of more than 14 trends we think significant.

We've also cited in #14 a few from media critic Jeff Jarvis from his BuzzMachine blog, in particular his article "A scenario for news." BuzzMachine is a very interesting blog, and we highly recommend it.

1. We will need a new definition of “newspaper” as many shift to an online-only format, thus losing the “paper” part of their business. We suggest calling them “newssites” (based on the soon-to-be outdated newsstand). Calling them “dailies” isn’t appropriate either, given a 24/7 news cycle.

2. Mainstream Media (MSM) will experience at least five changes:

o Dozens of secondary newspapers and magazines will shift to an online-only model in 2009. Already this year, FinancialWeek announced that it is shifting over this month. The benefits of the online-only model include substantial savings now that they no longer have to print, mail and deliver content (to newsstands and homes). The downside: they lose three revenue streams – display and classified advertising from the print edition as well as subscription fees – and now rely on online advertising to fund their operations. Online subscription fees have worked for only select media – even the New York Times couldn’t make a fee-based plan work. Expect some surprises as some larger market papers find themselves in real trouble (for example, the Times' cutting its dividend). Addendum: The day after we posted this, the Times reported that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a good, large-market paper in a two-paper town, may go online-only or shut down within 60 days.

o Traditional media that continue to publish print editions will update their formats to include more maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats, along with shorter articles. These print editions will also be shorter, with some papers – including the Denver Post and Boston Globe – having shed stand-alone business sections. The same holds from magazines. As Fortune tech reporter, David Kirkpatrick wrote on Twitter: "an indicator of the sorry state of the economy – and the magazine industry: the new issue of Time – a mere pamphlet." (Don’t forget: Time and Fortune are published by the same company! And Fortune’s current issue is pretty thin, too.)

o These smaller floating business sections are not likely to achieve their publishers' goal because the sections are more difficult for readers to find and these sections provide less coverage of business at a time when the economy is in turmoil and undergoing seismic shocks -- a time when people need to more closely understand what's happening and how it impacts them. These smaller sections will also be less interesting to advertisers, too, because readers may easily skip over them.

o The value of content is changing. Traditionally, the value of the entire newspaper or magazine was worth a lot. Now, individual articles (available often by RSS feeds, Tweets, Google or other search engines) are worth more than the newspaper as a whole because technology has enabled us to consume only that which really interests us. It’s more efficient this way, but paging through a newspaper ensures you get a broader sense of what’s going on. It’s a more niche world.

o Stringers and civilian journalists will become more important. Because of staff cutbacks and bureau closings, MSM may not be able to find and send reporters or crews to cover breaking, important news outside their immediate region. The tragic shootings in Mumbai is an example where MSM, including some of the biggest names in journalism, relied on first-hand local reports. For example, CNN uses footage from iReport, and has been posting citizen video footage since Hurricane Katrina. Expect this trend to continue.

3. Expect to see fewer launches of new magazines, and to see some struggling media to call it quits in 2009. Remember that circulation is irrelevant to the publisher’s decision to discontinue a magazine if its ad pages/revenue drop. Over the past 18 months, some magazines with circulations in the hundreds of thousands closed because the advertisers stopped buying space.

4. Online newssites are not immune to the ad slowdown. According to ValleyWag, the Gawker-owned Silicon Valley gossip site, “LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut about 20 of 28 employees — and offered them no severance, we're told.” Expect more layoffs from this part of the sector.

5. Local coverage continues to be the name of the game for regional news organizations. Hyperlocal is the new local, with news about communities operating within a local market being the forefront of hyperlocal coverage, some say.

• Local competition in the online space will heat up. Circulation figures for local weeklies probably will remain stable, but online competition will increase. In New England, Boston.com is competing more aggressively with Gatehouse Media’s WickedLocal.com – to the extent that the latter is suing the former for having too many pointers on Boston.com to WickedLocal.

6. Broadcast media will continue to see significant changes:

• Niche is the new normal, especially for broadcast. This will make it difficult for marketers to reach broad audiences. In fact, that’s why we predict that Jan. 20th will be the single biggest media event this year – everyone will cover the Obama inauguration. On the other hand, according to Portfolio magazine: "There's something for everyone, but nothing for everyone." It's partly due to the shift to cable and the Internet.
• Increasingly, people will access TV shows with their computers as opposed to watching the shows when they air. For example, there were 1.4 million viewers of the Couric-Palin interview on YouTube and more than 4 million of the SNL skit – that’s the power of YouTube and Hulu.com. NY Times’ David Pogue already suggested consumers could save money by disconnecting cable, and logging onto the Internet instead to get network feeds and local news coverage.
• Local cable/TV operators will have a bumpy road because of a significant double whammy: Both advertisers and viewers are fleeing. Local broadcasters will need to find a way to cut costs – which means more layoffs – while stemming the tide of departing viewers. One way may be to follow the lead of NBC, which realized that airing the new Jay Leno show five nights a week at 10pm is cheaper than airing five original 60-minute dramas (even with Jay’s $30 million salary). Local TV may find that whatever time they have can be best/inexpensively filled by talk shows.

7. More organizations will jump onto the Twitter bandwagon. However, many will encounter the same problems as with corporate blogs:

o How often to maintain them?

o Who should maintain them?

o How do you measure a successful program?

o What’s the proper balance between communicating the company’s interest vs. being so self-serving that no one “follows” them?

We recently saw a Twitterite whose job is audience development for a major media outlet whose tweets consisted only of featured articles in the publication. The person had 1,612 tweets, but only 44 followers. In comparison, the magazine’s official Twitter feed has more than 12,000 tweets, and more than 600 followers. It’s a lot of effort with not much payoff. What companies need to understand is that Twitter and social networks are about engaging in conversations.

8. Social networking will continue to grow, but expect a social networking backlash to start. After all, with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Plaxo, how many ways do we need to connect to the same people? We’re feeling social networking fatigue (SNF) based on getting contacts on two different sites from someone we don’t know. Meanwhile, the challenge for some sites, like Twitter and Plaxo, is that they have yet to monetize their communities, user base, etc. How long can Twitter survive without generating a revenue stream? The backlash will also affect sites designed to help with lead generation but contain wrong information. There are a number of such sites like Spoke.com, Lead411, JigSaw.com. Spoke.com included a number of people as Birnbach employees who actually work at an acquired client of ours; that’s the most egregious, but most of these sites contain misinformation. (Since they’re for lead gen, we have not corrected most of the mistakes we’ve found.)

9. Online reputation management will become more important and much more in-demand function due to the proliferation of sites and ways that people can post information, reviews, etc. about their experiences. For some companies, including Dell and Comcast, online reputation management becomes part of the customer service function. In fact, while understanding and working with social networking sites has been the purview of PR departments and their agencies, there will likely be more of a push by sales and customer service departments and HR departments to be in charge of social networking. In fact, because of media, customer relations and recruiting needs, all three functions (PR, HR and sales) should be working together to maintain and enhance their online reputation.

10. The Kindle will continue to sell to early adopters, but it’s still more like a beta of what’s ahead: bigger, more colorful screens, easier ways to share articles to other users, even a text-to-speech or audio book option so you can throw your book in the car. We expect e-books to become bigger in 2010.

11. The New York Times will survive, but will have a tough 2009.

o The Times will be faced with two obstacles as it seeks this year to solve its Boston Globe problem, since the Globe is losing an estimated $52 million per year:

§ Internal problem: The entire company is now worth less than the $1.1 billion it paid for the Boston Globe. (As of Jan. 6, its market cap is $1.09 billion; it had been less than $900 million in Nov. 2008). It’s difficult to write off that much money, but the company has taken other drastic steps such as cutting dividends to conserve cash and taking out a mortgage on its new headquarters. How much is it worth to them to unload the Globe?

§ External problem: Even at a distressed, Times-financed purchase price, who will want to takeover the Boston Globe? After all, if the Times can’t make the Globe profitable, who can?

o In terms of the Times itself, the challenge is that its attempt to sell online-subscriptions failed several years ago. It’s going to need to find ways to increase the value it provides its advertisers, such as its new ad across the bottom of the front page. That said, we don’t think the Sulzbergers will sell the Times, as the Bancroft family sold the Wall St. Journal to News Corp.

12. Rupert Murdoch will make more changes to the Wall Street Journal in 2009. So far, Rupe has not corrupted the Journal entirely. (The dire predictions from News Corp critics have not been fulfilled.) Despite initial murmurs, don’t expect the Journal to give up its lucrative online subscription fee; in fact, it just raised the fee last year. We don’t see much value for readers of the new WSJ Magazine; it seems like a high-end lifestyle concept in search of advertisers.

13. The Associated Press will consider substantial changes to its model.

o A number of papers have given the AP notice that they want to cancel their participation in the AP. Most of these are smaller papers – like the Bakersfield Californian, Idaho Falls Post Register, Yakima Herald-Republic and Wenatchee World – seeking to renegotiate down the fees they pay. But some big papers like the Tribune Co. (parent of the LA Times and Chicago Tribune) and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (no relation) have also given notice.

o On the one hand, many papers seem to rely on wire service coverage even more in 2009, thanks to closing bureaus in Washington, DC, and foreign capitals. On the other hand, the renewed focus on local coverage means that one article appearing multiple times no longer makes sense. After all, when searching on a topic on Google News, how many links to the same article do you need?

o All this means is that the AP needs to re-evaluate who it serves and how it serves them.

14. Journalist and media critic Jeff Jarvis will be right about a number of the predictions he made.

o Citing content from others will continue in 2009 – it’s part of what makes Twitter useful. In his BuzzMachine blog article, “A scenario for news,” Jarvis predicted several interesting things we thought worthwhile to cite:

§ News will emerge from networks…No one believes that a 35-person staff can cover Philadelphia as the 300-person newsroom did; they will have to collaborate with the community, with, we hope, a network of a thousand or thousands. Some people will freely contribute to the news network’s efforts, recording school-board meetings for podcasts, say.

§ Editing will change. Editors will become more curators, aggregators, organizers, educators. Their jobs will be less about controlling a flow than encouraging and improving creation.

§ Do what you do best and link to the rest will be a foundation of the future architecture of news. This is a necessity of efficiency – no one can afford to waste resources on commodity news – but also a necessity of the link economy, for it is through others’ links that original journalism will get attention and audience and the opportunity for monetization through advertising. Linking to journalism at its source - rather than matching it or rewriting it, as we have done - will become an ethic, a moral imperative of the new journalism.

§ Specialization will take over much of journalism. We’ll no longer all be doing the same things - commodifying news – but will stand out and contribute uniquely by covering a niche deeply. Local newspapers, I believe, must specialize in being local and serving local communities.

§ News will find new forms past the article, which will include any media, wiki snapshots of knowledge, live reports, crowd reports, aggregation, curation, data bases, and other forms not yet created.