Print media's not dead, just in the ICU

Given at this time of year most of us are busy shuffling from kitchen bench top to oven to dinner table, and from retailer to wrapping paper to Christmas tree, one of the least joyful tasks we look forward to when we find a chance to steal a few moments alone with the iPad is surely to wade through reams of verbiage in order to get to the nub of an article.

So permit me to come to the point.

This is a short 134-page book that is good, but far, far from great. It has the makings of a wonderful essay or perhaps an uplifting oration but it’s not a cool book. Not cool at all.

There are just too few facts and only a small part of a very important story is conveyed. If you’re a working journalist, a recently made redundant journalist, an aspiring journalist or merely interested in the media you’ll be left wanting.

That said, like all great storytellers, the author, Margaret Simons, the Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne, raises more questions than she answers. And as they say in creative writing classes: she shows rather than tells.

I expected the book would explain the changing face of print media and how the current business models of most mainstream media firms are broken and in need of repairs.

But it doesn’t.

Two major forces that are diluting the profitability of print media – softening advertising revenues and a collapsing (paid) readership - are both exacerbated by the current economic slowdown. The former Editor-in-Chief of The Age Michael Gawenda explains this and more in the book’s thoughtful foreword.

The economics of media (both legacy and new) that underpins the financial viability of a business barely makes a cameo appearance in the book. There is scant mention that a significant factor in the transformation of the media over the last three years has seen marketers lug their spending away from paid mass media print advertising in favour of online communications, be it customised (non banner) advertising on e-zines, loyalty programmes, Facebook campaigns or reeling in customers to their own web sites.

In ad speak this is called  “below the line” marketing, and already represents three-quarters of most marketing budgets, having grown faster than paid media since well before the current slowdown. Below-the-line campaigns is tipped to consume the bulk of marketing spending as the economy improves, placing a cap on the ad recovery that print media outlets are counting on to restore their profits or even to ensure their capacity to hire staff and allow journalists to produce high end content such as investigative pieces or long form articles.

The rise and rise of digital media has hit print hardest, since print ads are priced at a significant premium over other kinds of advertising and crucially marketers have been lethargic to reduce spending on print media’s closest substitutes: broadcast and cable television spending, because these marketers want to continue creating and developing brand awareness.

In addition, former print advertisers, as they consider travelling towards more and more digital communications, will be shocked to find that the digital space already resembles a crowded airport runway, teeming not only with same-industry rivals but also with a much broader set of opportunists, including Google, Yahoo!, Facebook and Big Media’s online properties, all attempting to aggregate “eyeballs” from an array of sites.

Simons fails to discuss this.

She also fails to compare the economics of those media outlets who have expanded their share of advertisers’ marketing budgets by guaranteeing a readership through successful charging for their content online the same way they do in print (such as the wsj.comand ft.com) with those publications that don’t charge or have charged and failed to cultivate a readership.

Simons, as an educator of would be journalists is on strong ground when she defends the attributes she considers mandatory in journalists: nimbleness, curiosity, relentlessness and fearlessness. She rightly considers them the rodents of public life.

She laments that journalists these days are falling short of being civic minded, remain closeted, less inclined to produce long form investigative pieces, more inclined to cosy up to politicians and are at times indistinguishable from public relation hacks. She pokes fun at the irony and narcissism inherent in a group of Canberra journalists calling a television programme - which airs on ABC - of all things, “Insiders”.

Simons explains that fewer journalists are being hired and trained by the major print media outlets News and Fairfax, mainly given the fall in ad revenues meaning the proprietors have less capacity to invest in staff and in staff’s content.

She is convinced that most readers are not tuning out of media reporting per se but they are tuning out of how legacy media does the job. She remains convinced that the public, irrespective of age remains keen on staying, say, politically engaged, but wants politics packaged differently from what mainstream media offers.

Simons relates the story of how one American firm’s business model was changed to be more in sync with its readership and in time became successful.

In 2009 the Journal Register Company was broken. It was in Chapter 11, “regarded with cynicism and disgust by its audiences, clients and saddest of all, by its employees”. But just two years later, the company was generating better than expected profits. Advertising has improved across the board. Simons explains how the JRC was very comparable to Fairfax in its product base, readership demographics, high debts and demoralised staff.

The new CEO, John Patton, formerly CEO of ImpreMedia, started on February 1, 2010, by announcing he would provide all reporters with Flip video cameras as a sign of his commitment to the company's digital transformation.

Patton embarked on a mission called “Digital First, Print Last” that meant getting closer to the audience and unleashing the creativity of its staff. He eschewed the behaviour of many rivals who spent millions on proprietary software in favour of open source products. And he greatly enhanced his firm’s relationship with readers via Facebook, Twitter and the like.

By the end of 2011, a few months prior to the publication of this book, JRC announced US $41m profit, and as agreed with staff, everyone would get a slice of that pie.

JRC’s happy ride with its readership didn’t last long.

As an indication of just how turbulent the new media space is, in September 2012 soon after publication of Simons’ book, the JRC moved back into Chapter 11.

To succeed in the new digital space, print media companies can adapt or recreate their business models. Vendors of financial news are the standout example of successfully pulling this off.

There are four general paths to take: develop deeper relationships with readers around niche interest areas; tap into revenue streams beyond circulation; remake the content delivery model by emphasising brand-defining material and innovate with new products and pricing models.

Simons covers just one out of four.

A book on the new media landscape that has little if any input from marketers, website creators and social media mavens is bound to show gaps.

As this book does.