Falling Revenues But Higher Numbers

In every one of our journalism classes, we discuss in some way or another the impact of the internet and technology on society today. And what is most associated with the internet other than the computer?

Though this post does not necessarily have to do as much with the future of journalism, I read an article about the Black Friday sales of computers. Revenue is down. This didn’t make sense in my head at first, considering I couldn’t possibly imagine why the computer business would be suffering. But then I read further in the article, and it said that revenues were down, but the actual number of computer sales were up. The number of computers sold increased by 63 percent in volume. But revenues are down 1.2 percent. The drop in revenues may be the result of cut prices.

This to me resembles something that is happening in the media industry. The circulation of magazines is up, but revenues are down. This to me signifies a business model that needs to be reworked.

If you’re selling more but making less, then surely something is not adding up.

I think both the computer and media industry have some business planning to do.

NYT Layoffs Soon To Come

Executive editor Bill Keller of the New York Times says it does not seem likely he will be able to meet the goal of 100 voluntary buyouts.

As of December 7, 2009, only nine employees took the buyout.

This means that unless more employees take a voluntary buyout, 91 employees will be laid off.

Buyout offers have been on the table since October, but it looks like many employees are not caving in, despite Keller’s warning.

Source: wsj.net

It’s sad to see so many print publications having to either lay off workers or close down completely.

In my final paper, I discussed what the future of journalism would look like in five years. I think there will be a more dramatic shift towards the internet and digital media, but I don’t think print will cease to exist.

I also mentioned that I think instead of focusing on WHY the news industry is failing, people will start or at least in the next two years, have started planning HOW to save the news industry — HOW to bring it into the future.

I do think it’s important for us to address the issue at hand today, but spending so much time thinking about why print is going out of business is not necessarily the best solution. We already addressed the problem, and so many reports have given us, if not answers, at least sound theories, as to why we are facing this problem. We should be working on a to do list and setting up a plan for the future.

The OWN Network

In September 2011, Oprah Winfrey’ s cable network, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) will make its way to television sets across the nation. The cable network will center around Oprah’s message of empowerment, featuring content that will “inspire and entertain people around issues of money, weight, health, relationships, spirit, helping people to raise their children and give back, teaching people to be all that they can be.”

The one thing that won’t be on the cable network though, is Oprah’s current talk show.

Source: dailymail

I think Professor Reiner’s lecture on broadcast television really opened my eyes to how broadcast is really doing today. I constantly hear about newspapers and magazines dying, and although I know that fewer and fewer people our age are actually watching the news on tv, I had no idea that it was really doing that bad. (Until Reiner told us). And I also had no idea how great of an impact Oprah leaving and starting her own cable network would have on the major networks. Not to mention, the impact that Comcast buying out NBCU will have.

Besides the internet already changing all aspects of journalism and communication, I think cable is going to be the other wave of the future.

Why Do I Always Use the Word “Why”? A 24/7 Semester-End Reflection.

OK, so for those who haven’t already noticed, I always use either why, how or one of the other w’s to begin my post title. I do this because I thought it would be a neat idea to ask a question in the title and answer in the post. I still think it’s a good idea, considering my obsessive compulsive disorder, but I couldn’t help but think that it all looked a bit silly. It’s not so much the question and answer that looks silly, but that I literally usually only answer the question but offer no solution to it.

Perhaps it is just the journalist in me that constantly feels the need to ask questions. But there’s also a part of me that feels as though I’m not really answering my own question.

For example, in my previous post on why the newspaper industry continues to look dismal, I only answer the question because I only tell you why it looks dismal. But first, of course I know, that that is not the only reason why it looks dismal. I’m sure the circulation numbers are affected by other factors.

But I thought for once, that I would finally offer a solution rather than just an answer. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the solution is. But I can comment on three brave classmates who decided to come up with ideas of their own.

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I thought the Liveandlocal.com idea was brilliant. I really did. I think it would be great to have a site like that because I’ve often tried myself to search for events where I can see local or unknown bands play, and it’s not an easy process. I always end up going either to the site of the venue or larger sites that organize concert information, but it’s not as easy to find a website that can tell me about the band at the same time. And I do feel that more people are getting interested in music, so there really is a market there. It’s also interesting to have journalism incorporated because I don’t see that often. Maybe journalists could even follow bands?

CINCH was one of the most hilarious presentations I’ve seen in a while. Although I’m with Frank because I also don’t know how CINCH can be done, I do think it’s a better idea to use the pull strategy and give people what they want but not push them the product. This way we don’t have all these extra newspapers, and that would really help cut costs. It’s good though that someone was brave enough to come up with an idea on what to do with newpapers because we all know going down that road is no easy feat. Plus, a Cheap Immediate Newspaper & Coffee House doesn’t sound like terrible place to spend a morning before work.

I also liked Lauri’s idea on the food site that would kind of amalgamate everything that has to do with food really, from recipes to reviews. There are sites that exist out there, but I do agree with her that there really isn’t one site that has everything on it. You kind of have to go to different sites to get different things. And although I don’t always mind going to the top of my webpage and typing in a new url, it would be so much more convenient to have everything there instead of letting me search for it on my own. I would love it if I could go to a food site, pick a restaurant I liked, read reviews about it, see pictures, be able to find out how to get there and then save it somewhere on the site so that if I ended up liking (or hating) it, I can go back and review it or look up recipes if I wanted to.

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I haven’t exactly answered my own question by providing a solution, but those are my thoughts on some of my classmates’ ideas.

I guess what I’m really trying to say about the “why” question is that, hopefully, the news industry will take this as a heads up. Instead of researching what the news industry will become or why it is failing, maybe we should be researching what we can do to save it and come up with a plan. Just a thought.

Why The Newspaper Industry Outlook Remains Dismal

As if our class news briefings about layoffs weren’t enough, this article makes the standing of the  print industry look even worse.

U.S. newspapers are losing subscribers, and some dailies have been able to keep circulation on the rise, but “they aren’t necessarily selling more copies.”

It turns out that new auditing rules enable newspapers to count a subscriber twice if a newspaper sells a “bundled” subscription to both print and electronic editions.

The circulation numbers would be even lower if not for these new auditing rules, which doesn’t exactly scream “hooray” for the industry.

What the actual number would’ve been if not for these new standards is unknown.

Source: Adam Zyglis

How “Murdoch Wants A Google Rebellion”

Is Google helping or harming the newspaper industry? There’s always two sides to every story. But Rupert Murdoch only sees one of them. He says Google is stealing copyrights and has urged media outlets to fight back by not allowing users to be able to search for content, like Murdoch’s publications, through Google. (Read the Forbes story here). And of course, Google has fought back, saying that it sends more than 300 million clicks a month to newspaper web sites.

In my opinion, the business relationship that new distribution channels like Google have created is a catch 22. Google does not produce any journalism, but it sorts through news stories and organizes them for users who in turn click on those stories and bring business to the news sites that users might otherwise not even have known about. Sometimes I search for news on Google, and it brings me to news sites that I have never been to but end up liking and going back to again.

Of course, it does seem sometimes like Google benefits the most because more people use Google than they actually use news sites, but news “sites like WSJ.com rely on Google to send hem readers, working hard to game how they appear on Google through the dark arts of search engine optimization.” Although WSJ Managing Editor Robert Thomson did say that “Google devalues everything it touches, [and] it divides content quantitatively rather than qualitatively.”

I guess it’s up to the reader then to decide what content is the best and what is actually worth reading. Google shouldn’t necessarily be blamed because more users click one site over another. Not that I don’t see the news sites’ side of this either. Again, it’s a catch 22.

Me in “The New Media Ecosystem”

Even in a hypothetical situation, it’s hard to say where I would see myself if I were to graduate in December. But now that I have taken journalism courses for a few years and am more informed of the industry’s current climate, I see myself as a multimedia journalist. I see myself working for an online news site or television because journalists today have to know how to do everything, literally. I would have to be a reporter, an editor, a publisher, a producer, a cameraperson and everything else that comes with putting together a news story for multimedia. Although there are jobs that still exist in journalism where you only need to focus on one skill, I would look for a job that allows me to use multiple skills because that is the journalism of the future. You have to be able to do everything.

Discussion Points

Discussion Points:

Michael Rosenblum & Brian Farnham

1. For Rosenblum there is no line of  separation between church and state. Do you agree? (From my understanding as a business major and journalism minor, when business  is considered more important than journalism, and I’m quoting one of my business professors when I say this: it’s called Public Relations).

2. Farnham embraces the idea of separation between church and state. And he uses this philosophy in his business model for Patch.com. He said during his presentation that the journalists that report for Patch have nothing to do with the business — their sole jobs are to report information. What do you think of this business model?

How The New Yorker Is “The Last Magazine Standing”

Even though The New Yorker’s parent company, Conde Nast, has cut hundreds of jobs and even closed several publications in the past months, the size of the staff at The New Yorker “continues to look, remarkably, about the same as it did five years ago.”

The magazine publishes 46 issues a year, and in order for it to do so, it must have a sizable staff, says Editor-in-Chief David Remnick. The New Yorker assembled its first list of staff members to look like a masthead a little over four years ago. Before that, it had never published a masthead. Although the editorial staff has gotten a lot younger, the size of the staff has barely changed.

This is good news to the journalism industry. At least someone understands that to sacrifice staff is to sacrifice content. But personally, my favorite part of the magazine has always been the covers.

Source: The New Yorker

Where Do NBCU and Comcast Go From Here?

NBC Universal and Comcast have been in talks for a while on a possible joint venture. And now it seems the possibility is becoming a probability.

Comcast Corporation and General Electric have decided that NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker will head the joint venture, but the structure of the board is still under negotiations.

Under the joint venture, Comcast will control a 51 percent stake of the company, and NBC will control 49 percent of the company. We all know what this means in the business world — that Comcast has ultimate control and say over major business decisions.

It would be interesting to see this joint venture play out because the CEO of NBCU is heading the proposed joint venture that Comcast will ultimately control. Thinking beyond the business aspects of the new joint venture, what would this mean for content? Would content on NBC networks stay the same or would there be a change? In my opinion, NBC has a strong network of news and entertainment shows that would be almost impossible to alter withouth having to sacrifice both good content and a decrease in viewers. So, I’m not sure if content would change much, especially because the new CEO of the joint venture remains Zucker.

However, I do feel that there will be a shift because Comcast has commanding control, and they might make certain business decisions that will affect what we see in the future or how we see it. But until the full proposed plan is set, it’s hard to tell what this means for the future of the network.

Here are some related articles to the story:

Comcast close to gaining control of NBC Universal

GE, Comcast talks on NBC U progressing

Comcast/NBC wedding in for a close look