Discouraging words
October 10, 2007 in Advising, hope for the future
I have the business sense of a squirrel, but even I can see a disturbing financial trend for our student media here. We’ve been looking at our quarterly income statements today, wondering how to stop the bleeding. Ad revenue looks to be down 20 to 25 percent from last year at this time. We had hoped that the problem was local – that we were doing something wrong and could find a way to fix it. But after hearing from business advisers from around the country, it looks as though nearly everyone’s in the same boat. National advertising appears to be the primary culprit, but local has been tough, too. #
We’re finding areas to make cuts, but really, personnel is the only place to make a significant dent. So we either hire fewer reporters, photographers, designers, etc., and ask more of our already-overworked editors, or we reduce all staff and start printing smaller papers with less local content and – gasp – maybe even less frequently. And in the process, we sacrifice part of our educational mission. #
So my question for Innovation in College Media is this: Are college media nearing a point where we need to invent new business models to sustain ourselves? Of course new media is part of that mix, but it’s still not a major source of revenue (at least not here). The print product still pays almost all of the bills. Meanwhile, fewer people read newspapers. #
Do we look for revenue aside from advertising? What might that look like? Do we publish a printed newspaper less frequently, and attempt to drive readers to an innovative Web site in hopes that they won’t give up on us altogether? Will advertisers support that? Do we create niche publications? #
And, can we get good advice from professional news media, other than “Welcome to the real world?†#
I don’t know any of these answers. I’m hoping some of you might. #
Check out the Newspaper Next (http://www.newspapernext.org/) program developed by the American Press Institute. There are huge business opportunities for college media, but it requires much different thinking about their business. This will help you do that. Stephen Gray, one of the principals, recently remarked to me how surprised he was that he gets so few inquiries from college media about the program.
Chris (and Jim and everybody else), it's really no surprise that college media in general doesn't express much interest in the newspaper next program (i've scanned the report). College media hasn't had to face the economic realities of the industry yet. I also heard some of the things Jim has heard recently, and it really concerns me. One reason it concerns me is because I don't have an answer ready. It's going to take work. And honestly, some of the newspaper next thinking addresses a reality that college newspapers don't yet face. College newspapers have extremely high readership rates. Students do pick up the paper. So that's not an issue for most.
Staffing and funding new innovation IS an issue, as Jim notes.
I do think the Newspaper Next report is something people should read and get a handle on. I'm just not sure most college news media outlets are "there" yet, and even when they get there, resources are going to be an issue.
I have noticed this same trend about 5-6 years ago at the high school level. We started having advertiser problems, but the nationals actually started giving us a few bones. But about three years ago it all just dried up. Businesses totally stopped ads in our yearbook a good five years ago. We have put our newspaper on hold until we decide to either do it 100 percent digital or just let it die. Our video, yearbook and web classes have high enrollments, but the newspaper just doesn't attract a lot of attention.
I agree that college papers aren't there yet. All the better to start now. What I like about the NN framework is that it gets you thinking about how to grow and attract new readers and communities. And thinking about different business models. What else can you do for folks besides selling them an ad? As for resources, their mantra is to "fail fast, fail cheap." Resources will only dwindle as time passes. Most papers will never have more resources to innovate than they have right now.
I can also say, as a full-time professional journalist, that reinventing everything from content to the business model is something journalists are being asked to do as part of their jobs now. So getting students to start thinking about that could be as important as teaching them how to shoot video, or do a podcast, in terms of preparing them.