Slashdot Mirror
Your Media Business Will Not Be Saved (medium.com)
Joshua Topolsky, co-founder of The Verge and Vox Media, and formerly Editor-in-chief of Engadget, has published an article on Medium wherein he analyzes the ongoing and long-term issues with digital media businesses and their increasingly growing thirst for more and more clicks. Topolsky says that the rate at which media outlets are adopting the new technologies and platforms (such as video, "bots, newsletters, a morning briefing app, a lean back iPad experience, Slack integration, a Snapchat channel, or a great partnership with Twitter") in an attempt to capture more audience -- and save its receding loyal reader base -- isn't going to fix the problem. Topolsky, who left Bloomberg news outlet last year amid his disagreement with Michael Bloomberg himself, writes: The Problem is that we used to have a really neat and tidy version of a media business where very large interests controlled vast swaths of the things we read, watched, and listened to. Because that system was built on the concept of scarcity and locality -- the limits of what was physically possible -- it was very easy to keep the gates and fill the coffers. Put simply, there were far fewer players in the game with far fewer outlets for their content, so audiences were easy to sell to and easy to come by. [...] The media industry now largely thinks its only working business model is to reach as many people as possible, and sell -- usually programmatically, but sometimes not -- as many advertisements against that audience as it can. If they tell you otherwise, they are lying. [...] The truth is that the best and most important things the media (let's say specifically the news media) has ever made were not made to reach the most people -- they were made to reach the right people. Because human beings exist, and we are not content consumption machines. What will save the media industry -- or at least the part worth saving -- is when we start making Real Things for people again, instead of programming for algorithms or New Things.
I'd say, as far as network TV and the music industry goes, the golden age was between the 1950s and the 1990s, when, by and large, the business model remained static. By the first few years of the 2000s, broadband was becoming common enough that P2P began to impact those industries. Of course they completely misunderstood what was happening, as they continue to, and did not view piracy as an expression of consumer desire, giving new players like Netflix and Apple the opportunity to build new business models.
I simply don't think the traditional entertainment units know what to do. They see their profits in jeopardy, but I doubt piracy is their chief fear. Their chief fear is that their "new media" competitors are simply going to abandon them completely and produce their own content. Amazon and Netflix are doing this, and some musical artists are already beginning to think beyond the old paradigm of the record label.
Frankly, I think traditional media is screwed; whether that's network entertainment, network news, newspapers, radio; you name it. Maybe they can twist governments' arms for a decade or two, but in the end, if they don't abandon the old models, they're dead, and seeing as they still spend an astonishing amount of time trying to defend their turf through the courts, lawmakers and international treaties, I don't think they'll ever be in a position to adapt. They don't get the customer base, and cannot accept that the captive audience of yesteryear is rapidly becoming a distant memory.
When newspapers think using scam advertisers like Outbrain is an innovative way of creating revenue, you know that media group is fucked beyond all repair.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They understood, but they were not interested in creating this business model. Because it meant losing control. They view it as their job to tell you what you can see and when you can see it. That you would prefer to watch your favorite show at another time than 10pm on a Thursday means nothing, because that's when they know you'll tune in for your favorite show, so at the 8pm timeslot on Friday, when you would understandably prefer to watch it, you will get something inferior because that's when you will watch anyway, no matter what you get offered.
That way they get your eyes twice instead of just once.
A business model that allowed you to decide what to view and when meant a net loss to them and was certainly not something they would offer. And in their hubris, used to eliminating competition and ensuring a monopoly position for too long, they didn't even think that someone might come and simply offer to you what YOU want.
And lo and behold, they're trying to fight it now. Yet another dinosaur that just refuses to die. Too bad we can't simply drop an asteroid on them to get rid of them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Have you READ the comments at the threat you're linking? Aside of a handful of relevant ones discussing the quality of the hashes that were hacked, I read little but belittling and ridicule of those that got hacked. Relevant? Insightful? Informative? What mod did you expect? Even funny would not cut it because it simply was rarely funny. Or maybe I just don't get the joke, I don't play Minecraft.
And I dare to disagree on the downmodding into the negative. There are comments that are simply idiotic. From Golden Girls to our friend with the black hole fetish. I for one certainly don't mind NOT seeing them. And if you really want to, there's always the choice to step down into the cesspool. They're all there. Not a single Golden Cosmonaut will be lost to you.
Promote discussion, agreed. And as soon as you show me ONE comment at -1 or worse that is worthy of a discussion, we'll talk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They are all competing for a (more or less) fixed amount of time from a (more or less) fixed number of audience members. More competition == less for each competitor.
Sorry, I meant to say THIS ONE AMAZING FACT WILL EXPLAIN WHY YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE!
*ad*
*ad*
CLICK HERE TO START SLIDESHOW
[ fake "next" button ]
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
There is no reason newspapers (or anyone) should have so much influence over the political process.
Well actually there IS a reason, and it's pretty simple. People are lazy, and would rather have someone else tell them what to think.
In the end the studios and advertisers are going to walk. They already are in some cases. Newspapers are the canary in the coalmine. Mainstream advertisers are abandoning them to such an extent that the daily rag in many even medium sized towns is gone, and even the semi-weeklies are in serious trouble. Major newspapers are also suffering major revenue crunches, often with mountains of debt they have to service.
With the TV industry, sooner or later cord cutting and viewing alternatives (legal and illegal) are going to do the same thing to the broadcasters; their product will degrade to the point where advertisers just walk away.
Look at what one would consider the high point of traditional television; the MASH finale. Over 121 million people tuned in on February 28, 1983 to watch the show. For the traditional model it didn't get any better than that. By 1998, with so many more cable options, the Seinfeld finale mustered 76 million viewers. By 2004, a major network show like Friends could only muster 52.5 million, half of the Roots miniseries was able to get in front of a TV in 1977. In reality, the Internet is only finishing what the five hundred channel universe began two decades ago. How can the traditional networks survive with the steady erosion, and how long will the advertisers and the studios stick around to find out?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Way to conflate the sane ones with Trump - every aspect of whom is manufactured.
Clinton's focus on Women's rights isn't exactly outrage (manufactured or otherwise). It's a lifelong commitment to an issue - that occasionally gets used in opportunistic ways. But it's basically sincere. She doesn't race-bait white men - except in the sense, I suppose, that you may think women's advances have to come at their expense, which doesn't have to be true.
Likewise Sanders' problems with Capitalism go way back. He's a bit more outraged, but his critique is basically on target - hardly 'manufactured', beyond perhaps the tone of voice in a political speech. But c'mon - what's a political speech at all if not a drumbeat to action. He does blame bankers - and I guess maybe the majority of them are white males, but really. Can nobody criticize anybody without it being some form of race/gender baiting?
Of course, you're probably just angling for 'funny' mod points, but on the (not so) off chance that you really believe this "manufactured outrage / race-gender baiting" metric is even remotely informative...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...