Is the Register Citizen Setting the New Standard for Hybrid Print-Online Newspapers?

Interesting article from the New York Times, "Walk In, Grab a Muffin and Watch a Newspaper Reinvent Itself" about the Torrington, CT Register Citizen.

In a town suffering from the recession, the Register Citizen has taken several steps to remake itself, including:

• Developing a new slogan: "Digital First.. Print Last."
• Moving into a new building "designed to mirror the open, collaborative culture of the Web."
• Inviting town residents to participate in the paper's editorial meeting, offering coffee and muffins at the Newsroom Cafe and bringing in a new level of transparency to the paper.
  
• Embraced a new business plan "based on making The Register Citizen’s Web site a magnet for all things local and thus an attractive place for advertisers, sponsors and others who can replace declining newspaper subscribers and advertisers."

This type of community engagement seems to be working both with readers, especially online, and with advertising, which now comprises 17 percent of total ad revenue.

It's still at the experimental stage. But the Register Citizen could be a model for other papers. Since the paper is owned by the Journal Register, which owns 300 other papers, we just might see the modeler extend to other local papers.

What Can We Learn From the Possible Merger of Salon

The news that Salon.com is looking for a possible partner, "Who Wants to Buy Salon.com? Anyone?" raises some interesting points about online media's business, namely:

• It's not only print media that can generate million-dollar annual losses. Salon has lost $15 million over the last five years, including an estimated $5 million in 2010.
• Driven by the need to generate the revenues necessary to sustain a journalistic operation, Salon is shifting its coverage from politics and news to softer, shorter lifestyle coverage. The problem: we already have a lot of sources for lifestyle news while we have fewer sources for traditional news coverage.
  
• Standalone media properties can't hope to compete against media conglomerates -- even today. That's the lesson, too, to be drawn from the recent Newsweek-Daily Beast merger.

On the other hand, the FT recently scored a success with its iPad app subscription, "Financial Times iPad app scores success: Paper increasing its digital-only subscription base at a rate of about 500 a week, with strong growth in US," according its competitor, The Guardian. But while that's good news, it's still not self-sustaining.

One thing for sure, 2011 will continue to see pressure on traditional and online media.

2010 Predictions, 1 through 12

Each year, Birnbach Communications compiles an annual list of media trends for our clients, helping them to work more effectively with the media, both at traditional and online outlets, including blogs and social networking sites. Here's a list of some of our top trends in one place, to make it easier to review them all; let us know if you agree or disagree with what we've said.

• Traditional print journalism will continue to be important. Even as the resources allocated to practicing it diminish -- fewer print newspapers, fewer reporters at those print papers, and less space in those papers -- yet traditional journalism conducted by newspapers will continue to drive content across the web. A 2009 study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found though there are a lot more places to find news online, "of the stories that did contain new information, nearly all, 95 percent, came from old media -- most of them newspapers." In other words, most of the news articles found online basically picked up content from traditional sources, like newspapers, adding some commentary, but not new facts.
• Print newspapers and magazines will continue to struggle in 2010, and more will consider shutting down or transitioning to online-only, despite a (slower than we'd like) recovering economy. Although the number of magazines that shut down peaked in 2008, at 525, last year said goodbye to 360 magazines, including some major magazines like Gourmet, Metropolitan Home, Fortune Small Business. Last year also saw the deaths of major daily newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer as well as dozens of smaller papers. Large newspaper companies also announced bankruptcies last year, and we expect more closings in 2010. There is some good news: advertising pages may be increasing, according to Q1 projections, but only by 3 percent. However, print subscriptions continue to decline, and we expect newsroom layoffs to continue. The lesson: magazines from big publishing companies and significant circulations were not immune. Already, BusinessWeek SmallBiz announced (via postcard) that its Dec. 09/Jan. 10 issue was its last.
• 2010 will be the year of online subscriptions as publishers of all kinds are finding out that advertising-only-supported sites are not self-sustaining. Charging user fees will allow these sites to survive. The implications include:
  

• Getting the price for online subscriptions will be important. After all, Newsday.com spent millions to redesign its site to put a pay-wall so it could charge readers $5.00 per week for access. In three months, Newsday.com generated only 35 subscribers. In contrast, the Wall St. Journal charges less than $100 for online access, with a discount for print subscribers.
• Publishers will consider a number of different plans, ranging from a pay-wall which enables only paid subscribers to access content; a metered system that allows readers to sample a few articles before being asked to subscribe; premium access, in which many articles are free but more important ones are available only to paid subscribers; and a membership model like public radio.
• One problem will be that, despite new subscription platforms from a variety of companies, from startups like Journalism Online (run by Steven Brill) to potential solutions from News Corp., Google, Microsoft and IBM. The challenge: if some publications don't charge, people will gravitate to those free services.
• Online-only news outlets won't be immune to layoffs. They will find out cutting out printing and distribution costs isn't enough to be self-sustaining because they've given up a number of substantial revenue streams, too.
• Online subscriptions won't limited to online news content. Twitter will unveil a business model that will likely be focused on charging fees to businesses that use Twitter. Rupert Murdoch, who is an ardent advocate of charging for online content, and owns a percentage of Hulu.com, will push Hulu.com to offer its video library on a per-viewing and on an unlimited basis. The same goes for some streaming music sites that currently are available for free.
• Apple's iPad may make it easier for print newspapers to charge subscription fees for online access. A lot of print media are designing new layouts to take advantage of future tablet offerings.

• Mobile access on hand-held devices like the iPad, netbooks, and increasingly powerful app phones, will become increasingly important in 2010. Content will need to be platform-agnostic, including audio and video, developed to meet the demands of several key platforms (and not just the iPad and iPhone). It's not just newspaper publishers who need to think cross-platform; it's all businesses, whether they're trying to reach consumers or B2B customers.
• Top business and technology stories in 2010 are likely to include the following topics, though not necessarily in this order:

The economy, including the recovery, the housing market, auto industry and the "new normal."

The freelancing of the US workforce -- or how we'll all be contractors or "perma-temps" in the future (especially given the jobless nature of the recovery).

Apple's iPad and the future of mobile computing and Apple's iPads vs. cellphones vs. Kindle and other e-readers.

Cloud computing and virtualization -- and yes, we know: they're not the same thing.

Health care reform.

Regulations.

Google vs. Apple vs. Microsoft and EMC vs. HP vs. Oracle.

3-D TVs.

The state of the media, especially print media, online-only business models and online subscriptions.

Twitter's business model.

Location-based services and behavioral targeting by advertisers.

Online privacy as social media, behavioral targeting, location-based services and hackers combine to make it easy for others to access personal information.

This is not to exclude the other topics we've included in our 2010 predictions.

• In-flight Internet access will take off: We will see more in-flight Internet access in 2010 – by 2011; it won’t even be something airlines tout as another reason to fly with them. Lufthansa rolled out new service: web surfing from 30,000 ft at $3/min. (What does it cost for tech support?) We can expect more conference calls and emails, and flying cross country no longer means being unable to respond to email. But battery life, additional sockets, and headphones will be boom businesses. The rise of business videoconference calls may increase the noise level, but not to the point of requiring talking and no-talking sections. As with other aspects of high-speed Internet access, though the Internet was established in the U.S. , count on international airlines to be ahead of domestic airlines in the type of services offered travelers. (Coffee, Tea or Internet Access?)
• Video may have killed the radio star but radio will continue to survive -- for now. But in two years, we may not be making the same prediction. Today's kids do not listen to radio as much as previous generations did. They listen to iPods, and soon, iPads. We believe that radio continues to be important, especially during drive-time commutes. We think record companies should continue to support radio stations because people still first hear new songs on radio and then decide to download songs (or buy CDs, if they're boomers) based on what they hear on the radio. But because today's children are not getting in the habit of listening to radio, and because today's homes are less likely to have radios other than as part of a stereo system, radio stations are going to need to find ways to reach and cultivate new listeners. That's where record companies can come in, to their mutual benefit. Of course, radio may survive during increasingly long commute times since more states have enacted laws that prohibit texting while driving or require drivers to use hands-free technology when using their cellphones.
• The decline and fall of TV networks...won't happen in 2010, but networks are definitely on the decline. Case in point: "The Jay Leno Show" vs. "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien." In the end, NBC has been shedding viewers, and no change of hosts or programs may bring them back. It's not as though those viewers were sticking around for drama at 10 p.m. on other networks. Most likely they were turning to cable programs or on-demand offerings, TiVo, Hulu.com or the Internet.
• Social media platforms will survive the recovery. Some critics have said that Twitter and Facebook did well during the downturn because people had available time, either because they had less to do or because they had lost their jobs. People will continue to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media services but they might not be updating their pages quite as often. Social media sites will consider rolling out new ways for users to post and engage via multimedia (audio and video).
• Live integrated real-time interactive multimedia web events, which combine live video, and offering the ability to post and read comments on Twitter and Facebook windows, will become more common in 2010. Last year, Bill Cosby conducted the first-ever interactive townhall to introduce Cosnarati, a socially conscious hip hop group that he produces (http://www.ustream.tv/billcosby), offering a live videostream with a real-time Q&A function and the ability to post comments on Twitter and Facebook. The event gave users a number of ways to interact with Cosby, and could offer a solution for network TV -- if they can find a way to make money off it.
• The intersection of social media and traditional journalism will be increasingly busy. For example, while the Super Bowl continues to be the biggest non-holiday event for which Americans gather together, and while people comment on the ads as much as the games, advertisers themselves are looking beyond the ads, often offering websites with extended versions of some ads, driving viewers to their sites. Another example: Olympic sponsors are changing their approach this year -- rather than having social media simply an add-on to advertising and their PR activities- they are embracing it/integrating it.
• Online credibility will continue to be important, but new FTC rules requiring bloggers to disclose the receipt of free samples, gifts and cash payments will get confusing because many who don't blog are not required to make similar disclosures. Currently, tech reviewers at newspapers get free samples but don't need to disclose that fact (though Walt Mossberg and others do…on their websites and blogs). Theater reviewers often get free tickets while many freelance travel writers get all their travel "comped." Yet the FTC does not require these folks to disclose gifts unless they're bloggers. We actually think it makes sense to disclose any type of relationship with an organization being discussed because credibility is important for bloggers and non-bloggers. While it's good to see a government agency understand the need to keep pace with technology, we need clearer rules that ensure equal footing so that reviewers disclose relationships whether or not their work appears on a blog or in print.

Even as Print Newspapers are in Trouble, Newspapers Contniue to Set the Agenda

Everyone knows newspapers are in trouble. Advertising has dried up. Readership has declined. Papers have cut circulation, laid off reporters and editorial staff.

Yet there's interesting news about the impact of newspapers.

They still set the agenda for news cycles.

According to a New York Times article, "Study Finds That Papers Lead in Providing New Information": "Looking at six major story lines that developed over one week last July, 83 percent of the reports in local news media “were essentially repetitive, conveying no new information,” said the study, by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the Pew Research Center."

Most of the new or original reporting came from reporters at newspapers, despite the increase in the number of news outlets available online.

Presumably, most of the rest of the coverage consisted of repetition and commentary, not new reporting.

That's going to be a problem as it seems likely to be more editorial layoffs in the short-term. With fewer reporters and fewer resources, there will be less new reporting even as the echo chamber gets louder.

Has Print Advertising Started to Recover? And what does that mean for PR?

According to the Wall St. Journal, "Ad Influx Brightens Hopes For Newspapers, Magazines," some print magazines are posting small increases in their advertising pages for March (I know, it's only Jan., but magazines issues are often working three months ahead).

That's good news, even if we're takling about a 3% increase over last year. Which still represents a significant decrease from a couple years back.

Which is to say: a long way back from being called robust.

Yet, every increase in advertising pages could be good news for PR functions since there's traditionally every additional ad page increase includes an additional page of editorial. That means more opportunity for PR functions.

Ok, that may be only a 3% increase in March, but that's better news than what we saw for all of 2009.

Here's to a better year!

How is the Post-Print Mindset Changing Journalism?

In his compelling column, "After a Year of Ruin, Some Hope," New York Times "The Media Equation" columnist David Carr wrote about some of the positive changes impacting the media.

For one, Carr points out that some "old-school magazines...are moving very aggressively to refashion their brands for a tablet world and rightly so" -- that is, they're embracing new platforms. The key is for publishers to to move out of the nomenclature of 'subscriptions' for content and into the universe of 'applications,' there may be some gold in those hills."

Carr also points to changes in journalism as a result of new technologies and platforms:

• "On the subject of Twitter, we should point out that new generations of consumers are now guided to important news by the recommendations of trusted friends, and increasingly, they point to great reporting in sources that didn’t exist just a few years ago."
• "The founder of Gawker, Nick Denton, told me in a note that The Huffington Post and TMZ have demonstrated that news scoops are the coin of the realm and that Gawker will be heading in that direction. He suggested that the Web was further atomizing into sites that create original content and break news, and others that alter photos, float wild speculation or just gin up any old thing that will draw traffic."
• "And just as new media have absorbed the enduring values of traditional media — developing sources, making phone calls — so more established players are adopting the tools of the insurgency."
• "Meanwhile, journalism schools are no longer content just to teach the inverted pyramid. A few weeks ago, I was at CUNY’s graduate school of journalism to help judge presentations from more than a dozen teams of young media entrepreneurs. There were some clunkers, as there always are, but there were also some scary good, real-world proposals from students who don’t have to think out of the box because they were never in one to begin with."

My question: how are you seeing journalism change to adapt to social media and new platforms? I'm not interested in a debate of whether the evolution is good or bad -- that's irrelevant because it's happening regardless. What will be different about how journalism is practiced in 2010? Will traditional media focus more on breaking news -- before it can be validated by two or more sources? Let us know.

NYT's David Carr May Be Right That Business Media Has Changed Forever -- But Steve Jobs Continues to Be a Great Cover Subject

As I wrote earlier this week, Is NYT's David Carr Right? Has Business Media Changed Forever?, business media probably has been changed forever, due to the advertising decline and the impact of the Internet.

But in his column, "Business Is a Beat Deflated," David Carr said he thought we had reached the end of the period of CEOs-as-gods cover stories.

Well, someone forgot to send the memo to Fortune.

Fortune just crowned Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade.

Do we really need to determine the CEO of the Decade?

Is most of this decade one that most CEOs -- whose tenure has gotten shorter and shorter -- would prefer to forget?

And, by the way, for the record, I pointed out that there was an exception to the no more CEOs-as-gods stories: "Steve Jobs, who still gets adulation."

That prediction proved correct far more quickly than I had expected.

Is NYT's David Carr Right? Has Business Media Changed Forever?

New York Times media critic David Carr has written an interesting article about the state of business media in his column, "Business Is a Beat Deflated."

In the article, Carr wrote, "While the business of business may be back, the business of covering it with heroic narratives and upbeat glossy spreads most certainly is not. And probably never will be."

I think that the nature of business coverage will have to change, that we're not going to see many CEOs-as-gods stories (with one exception, Steve Jobs still gets adulation).

That's not to say we won't see cover stories on CEOs. We will. They just won't be as glowing profiles, for the most part.

I don't think that's a bad thing since the CEOs I've met have generally been very smart but also very human, too.

Should the Government Subsidize Newspapers?

For the past year, some journalists and editors have suggested that one way to help print journalism is to get government subsidies.

Now, in the past, the government has used farm subsidies to enact policy. So we had farmers paid not to farm, for example.

Would we pay journalists not to write -- if so, how do I get in line for that? Would the government reward papers for certain types of coverage (more patriotic news) and penalize them by cutting back support for other types of coverage (like reporting on scandals among politicians)?

I do believe that newspapers are important to our democracy working. The question is how to support them when the market isn't. I don't think subsidies are the way to go, and neither does Seth Lipsky, former editor at the Forward and the New York Sun. Check out his Journal op-ed,
All the News That's Fit to Subsidize, http://bit.ly/1IB35a.

And note, the swipe at the Times.

When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes -- Or, less poetically, some serious changes to Fortune Magazine

Ok, perhaps Shakespeare is not relevant, as in the quote from Sonnet 29, but there's still something rotten in the state of the publishing world.

Fortune Magazine will cut its publishing frequency from 25 issues -- basically every two weeks -- to 18 issues, which means some months Fortune will publish only once a month.

Although it recently remodeled the look and feel of the prestigious business magazine, Fortune is expected to remodel the magazine again, this time focusing on longer articles on fewer topics. If Forbes is about investing, and BusinessWeek about news, Fortune will continue its emphasis on managing (which had gotten less emphasis over the past decade) by adding new columns "to help business professionals do their jobs more effectively. It will have a cleaner, less cluttered look and an upgraded Web site," according to the Wall St. Journal.

In other words, the new Fortune will be more like Entrepreneur or Inc. or even its kid sister publication, Fortune Small Business (FSB) -- all good magazines, but all really focused on service journalism. That's not exactly what Fortune, which has columns on investing and executive lifestyles, was known for.

What's interesting, I think, is that service journalism -- basically articles offering advice and how-to's -- has become more important because the media world is evolving so rapidly that few people truly have a secure grasp of things. I think that's why how-to articles in the blogosphere are often so much more widely read than analysis articles (such as this one). People are looking for advice to help them make sense and respond to the changes.

Well, it looks like Fortune is giving people what they want.

Oh, and unfortunately, there will be layoffs, too.

Here are some of the proposed changes, according to the Journal:

• The magazine itself will become more of a lush-looking premium product. Fortune plans to increase the minimum number of editorial pages in each issue.
• They will stop (or reduce the number) of "CEO-as-god magazine covers that have been a staple of the magazine, whether with Jack Welch or Warren Buffett." Replacing the "CEO-as-god" stories will be more conceptual stories, such as one about the White House's relationship with Google.
• The emphasis on large companies will continue, including on its website. Fortune.com will be "recast to focus on key companies. Executives point to Fortune.com's blog about Apple Inc. and said there are more high-profile companies that will be treated similarly."
• I would expect certain special issues to continue, including the Fortune 500 issue, among others. In fact, we can expect more online-only content about the Fortune 500, "which the magazine hopes to turn into more of a brand that lives online all year."
• Fortune is beefing up service journalism (as noted above), "adding features about career advice and business how-tos. One might feature a person who gives hundreds of public speeches a year, and her advice on how to give more effective presentations. Another column might explain how to manage your online profile. Reflecting the growing influence of the federal government in corporate affairs, Fortune is adding a one-page column called 'Washington Watch.'"

But is it enough for Fortune to succeed? I don't think so. I think Fortune looses some prestige by dropping its publishing frequency, and perhaps some of its relevance. I also think they're making at least one mistake: "Executives decided it was more important for Fortune to be more visible on the Web, where the magazine may add staffers."

Yet the web-based version of Fortune is free -- the magazine generates no subscription revenue there, just some ad buys. But online advertising buys typically generate less money than print ads.

Meanwhile, on the personnel front, there are going to be layoffs, probably in the next week or so. It also means that whatever stories reporters were working on may be shelved. It means turmoil for the editorial staff and those of us pitching them.

How Business Magazines Are Responding to the Continued Ad Slump

We've seen a big change at BusinessWeek, now owned by Bloomberg. Big changes at Fortune. I guess we're waiting for the shoe to drop for Forbes.

Meanwhile, here are some interesting points from the Journal article, "Fortune Magazine Cuts Back Number of Issues; Changes Are Said to Foreshadow Further Restructuring at Time Inc. Publications as Ad Slump Drags On"

• "Industry executives believe news, business and general-interest magazines—unlike fashion and entertainment titles—are unlikely to rebound fully even after the economy is on a firmer footing." Which is to say, despite a recent Journal article that the business spending slump looks like it's ending, we're still not out of the woods yet.
  
• "They see a permanent change in how readers interact with news titles in the Internet age." Again, the advice component is something that news outlets and news websites are not offering.
• Business magazines have been hit hard during the ad slump: "The number of advertising pages in Fortune dropped 35% from a year ago, on par with the declines at BusinessWeek, Forbes and Newsweek." In contrast, "Ad pages for entertainment and celebrity magazines declined 15% this year from 2008, and fell 18% for fitness and men's lifestyle magazines such as GQ, according to Mediaweek," a far shallower dropoff.