The latest Pew Research
Not much that is surprising in this latest Pew Research, but numbers that we should take a look at when analyzing our own newsroom’s future strategies.
Here are the takeaways of interest:
U.S. newspaper circulation reached its lowest level since 1940
Digital ad revenue has grown exponentially, but a majority goes to Facebook and Google rather than to publishers.
Traffic to news websites seems to have leveled off. Unique visitors to the websites of both newspapers and digital-native news sites showed no growth between the fourth quarters of 2017 and 2018, the second year in which there was no notable growth, according to Comscore, a cross-platform audience measurement company. From 2014 to 2016, traffic rose steadily for both these sectors in the fourth quarter.
I was curious to see some numbers related to visits to home pages versus article pages. As it is with a majority of my clients right now, home pages are not the protagonists by far. Audiences come to read an article and take off. The home page as we knew it has disappeared. Article pages are becoming mini home pages, to promote articles of interest and to try—often with no success—to retain readers for at least one extra article.
Of related interest:
Wednesday’s must-read from Joshua Benton: “The L.A. Times’ disappointing digital numbers show the importance of not just getting subscribers but keeping them. One way to do it: content that becomes essential, new product creation and innovation, innovation, innovation.
New Bloomberg product: Work Wise
Take a look at this new product to attract a young audience with a topic that I have known to be a sure thing with those 22-30 specifically: content related to work and careers.
Bloomberg’s Work Wise does exactly that: it is created for younger visitors looking for jobs . Bloomberg’s goal for Work Wise, which will run for six months at first as an experiment, to test the appetite for workplace and career advice content, particularly among Bloomberg’s younger readers.
Work Wise’s purpose is to figure out if there is an audience and a business opportunity in producing more content about how to succeed in one’s professional life. It’s emblematic of the work Bloomberg Media is doing to continue diversifying its revenue streams and building products that can be monetized from several different angles at once.
GateHouse and Gannett
According to The Wall Street Journal , USA Today publisher Gannett Co. is nearing a deal to combine with rival GateHouse Media. It if hapens, the deal would join the nation’s two largest newspaper groups by circulation at a time local media is in a battle for survival. GateHouse to 156 dailies, Gannett to 109 plus USA Today
Many of my friends and I wonder what this potential acquisition will mean for both publishing houses. Disclaimer: I have done consulting work for GateHouse across its various platforms. My first consulting job and redesign was that of a Gannett newspaper, St. Cloud Daily Times.GateHouse to 156 dailies, Gannett to 109 plus USA Today
Here’s how Poynter’s media analyst Rick Edmonds sees it:
“,,,,my hunch is that further deep newsroom cuts as a result of a merger sometime later this year may not be in the offing. But there are important qualifiers. GateHouse, by reputation, does operate more leanly than Gannett. And even once the chains combine, if revenues per property keep declining so will news staffing.’
We will keep an eye out for this evolving story.
Good tips for multiplatform newsrooms
Amen to this piece by Uli Köppen, a 2019 Nieman Fellow, who is head of data journalism at the German public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk (ARD) and an affiliate to the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.
In his article Uli offers an insightful tour of how people in charge of newsroom innovation can accomplish much by following certain strategies that emphasize constant experimentation, and where teams are put together “organically”, and not always with the usual culprits we find in typical newsrooms. I like the suggestion to engage people with different skills sets, something I emphasize in my own workshops. In Uli’s own words:
Do you want to be ready for a startup in your newsroom, for new research methods, immersive storytelling, and product thinking? Then open doors for people with different skill sets. Invite coders, statisticians, bio-engineers, designers and {INSERT YOUR WILDCARD DISCIPLINE HERE} to work with you. But you’ll also need a fresh tool set and new management approaches.
Mario’s speaking engagements
Nov. 12
Keynote presentation: Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS).
Pre-order The Story
The newspaper remains the most powerful source of storytelling on the planet. But technology threatens its very existence. To survive, the Editor must transform, adapt, and manage the newsroom in a new way. Find out how, pre-orderThe Story by Mario Garcia, chief strategist for the redesign of over 700 newspapers around the world.
Order here:
https://thaneandprose.com/shop-the-bookstore?olsPage=products%2Fthe-story
The Story will also appear in print
I am happy to announce that we will, indeed, have a print edition of my mobile storytelling book, The Story. I thank you for expressing your interest to our publisher, Thane Boulton, of Thane & Prose. Now the print edition will be a reality, and you can already see the cover and back cover here:
An interview of interest
http://www.itertranslations.com/blog/2019/3/11/fd60ybflpvlqrgrpdp5ida5rq0c3sp
TheMarioBlog post # 3085