SFN report: Content on mobile devices greatest opportunity for publishers

Posted by Erina Lin on January 21, 2010 at 2:54 PM

The first annual World Newspaper Future & Change Study is a global research study about newspaper publishers' business strategies moving forward for the next five years, with the key objective to inspire newspaper executives to invest and innovate their business units and business practices, the latest SFN's report, Charting the Course for Newspapers, reported.

The purpose of the study is to pinpoint the business and strategic challenges of the world's newspapers, and then to identify the publishers' strategies moving forward to turn the challenges into opportunities.

Asked to rate a variety of platforms and business opportunities as threats or opportunities, on a scale of one to five, with five being the greatest opportunity and one being the greatest threat, respondents chose the development of content for the mobile channel including the iPhone as the greatest opportunity.

Mobile content development opportunity was followed by the development of social media, WebTV and Web radio as the next biggest opportunities, underscoring that digital channels continue to be the greatest opportunity for newspaper companies for the future, according to the survey respondents.

Despite a predilection for digital strategies, respondents identified several non-digital businesses as top priorities for development, including events and conferences; new print products, newspaper distribution services and production services. These high-rated opportunities confirm recent anecdotal research by SFN that in particular events and conferences are a potential revenue bonanza for newspapers, particularly when combined in advertising and marketing campaigns with print and digital advertising sales. About one-third of the respondents already execute events and conferencing businesses.

The creation of new print products in a portfolio of high circulation and Long Tail products, is an opportunity that has been explored in great detail in SFN's 8.5 New Print Products (June 2009) and SFN's 9.1 Publishing to Targeted Audiences (October 2009). The portfolio strategy offers publishers the ability to earn incremental revenues from a variety of publications, as the general purpose newspaper's advertising and circulation revenue streams diminish.

Newspaper distribution services and printing and production services offer insourcing opportunities for outside publishers and clients to enjoy the benefits of the newspapers' expertise and facilities, while the newspaper is able to profit from maximising equipment usage and reduce employee downtime. SFN has explored case studies from around the world that involve newspaper companies making millions of dollars by insourcing services with core competency services.

Some products and services were rated more of a threat and less of an opportunity, particularly Internet search engines, free newspapers, TV, books, newly launched newspapers and all-advertising newspapers.

The report, released by SFN and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, details the results of the Future & Change Study, completed in partnership with the Norwegian School of Management and the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom, which shows a majority of the 653 respondents around the world are looking to businesses outside the printed newspaper in order to grow revenues and revamp structures along the value chain that are no longer functioning at full throttle.