Hughes: Future of newspapers in local ownership
By Alexandra Zeumer, Thursday 27 March 2008 at 22:07 :: Media Ownership :: #1456 :: rss
As an industry, advertising has changed from being an extremely competitive field, where the majority of costs were in the mainstream media, to substantially more wide-ranging and growing hyper-competitive, G. Patton Hughes wrote for the PBS MediaShift Idea Lab Wednesday.
This year, ad spending on alternative media, which includes user-generated Web content, Internet search, mobile, gaming and branded entertainment, is speeding to increase 20.2 percent to US$88.2 billion, even if there is a slump. However, overall ad spending is up a mere .02 percent for the year, Hughes stated.
“In this kind of environment, selling is the challenge. That those pitching alternatives that don't include news means they are simply being rewarded for their creativity,” Hughes, owner of hyper-local news site Paulding.com, wrote in the column.
Newspapers readership is decreasing, while the prices they charge for advertising are at an all time high. Thus, people are leaning towards the Internet, because it is far easier to retrieve information, making it “the medium of choice,” Hughes stated.
However, the model of the locally owned and operated newspaper will possibly be the “new” business model. There are many different business models concerning new media, but, the essentiality of new media is that it gives opportunities to communities to regain their independent voices, Hughes wrote.
“The real question in this new media environment is whether the large, lumbering corporate structure can adapt the fast-moving Net or whether leaner, more entrepreneurial efforts will emerge to meet those needs.”




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