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Tomas Brunegard, CEO, the Stampen Group, and colleagues, Sweden
While newspaper companies are focusing strategy on growing readers and internet users, Mr Brunegard also counsels a stronger focus on the “other” customers - the advertisers.
New media competitors, and the ease with which advertisers can by-pass traditional media and reach customers directly, makes it essential for newspaper companies to develop their relationships with advertisers and find new ways to serve them.
“One of the new developments is the ability of the advertiser to reach consumers on their own, it’s very attractive for strong brands to build their own websites,” he said. “Ikea’s family site reaches 90 million people - this is very serious for us.”
In addition, “when Google goes local, it will affect the market for local newspapers. It will create a new game, with new rules,” Mr Brunegard says.
“I can assure you, if we play our cards right, we can win,” says Mr Brunegard. “We have a unique trump card - our businesses are built on deeply rooted values with the honest aim of building better societies.”
Ready to change: Cross-media sales and integrated news operations
Per Lyngby, Managing Director & Editor-in-Chief, Nordjyske, Denmark
‘Today, the key word is still perseverance. But for the last ten years four new words have been added to the development of Nordiyske Medier: Integration, transformation, diversification, and expansion’, says Mr Lyngby.
Nordiyske was long ahead of the curve; more than seven years ago the company said goodbye to traditional ways of working and mono-media sales and instead welcomed the digital age and the 24-hour economy.
‘Technology was once a barrier between newspapers, radio and TV, nowadays the production of all media is based on bits and bytes and you can use all sorts of multi-media devices. Most media markets were divided because of the geographical boundaries, nowadays distribution of media is boundless and not depending on geography. And it used to be that the media decided which editorial content to print or to broadcast as mass media. Nowadays people tailor their own media consumption’ he said.
In 2001, Nordjyske changed its newsroom plan and integrated all media, working together and as one.
“All of a sudden you could watch many of our newspaper reporters on TV, and they learned that although newspaper, radio and television have different strengths as media, journalism is storytelling - regardless of the media”, Mr Lyngby said.
New business models for newspapers
Christian Van Thillo, Chief Executive Officer, De Persgroep, Belgium
Mr Van Thillo believes in the future of newspapers, but is seeking new business models to guarantee their success.
“We don’t believe, as a multi-media company, that newspapers have a problem - they’ll still be around for years and years to come,” he says. “But we do, however, face a big fundamental challenge. It’s not the medium that’s challenged, but the sources of revenue behind it, and they’re all under pressure at the same time.”
De Persgroep recently merged three independent publishing houses into one new publishing group as part of this strategy. Mr Van Thillo’s presentations described the rationale for the move and the results.
The reasons were four-fold:
 To bring the best talent under one roof, with one corporate culture.
A news advertising sales approach for a new position in the market.
To create one centralized internet internet division.
And to build new revenue streams and to maximize existing ones.
Into the heart of the young people’s world
Anna Serner, CEO & Managing Director, Swedish Newspaper Publishers Association and Katarina Grafman, Cultural Anthropologist, Inculture AB
To determine how young people use media, the Swedish newspaper association commissioned Ms Grafman to employ techniques usually associated with the study of primitive cultures.
Ms Grafman, using ethnographic techniques, immersed herself in the world of Sweden’s young people, spending a month in their homes, in their schools, everywhere, filming and observing their media habits.
“To really understand this group, you can’t ask them questions anymore because they don’t know what they’re doing. You have to be together with them every day to see what they’re doing,” says Ms Grafman.
Here are some of the things she found:
“Young people live in a media world where everything is integrated - they don’t make any differentiation between media. Media is everywhere and they don’t differentiate it from the rest of their lives.”
“They don’t have a good attention span - it takes two seconds before they decide something is uninteresting.”
“The cellphone is the most private device they have. If people are coming in and climbing into this private sphere (with advertising or unwanted messages) they will reject it.”
New Research on Media Habits of Youth Breaks Stereotypes
Robert Barnard, Founder & Partner, DECODE, Canada
A new study on the media habits of young people in three countries found that television continues to be the most important source of news and information for the young, despite the rise of the internet - and newspapers can win their attention as well.
The survey of 3,500 young people between 15- and 29-years old in the United States, the Netherlands and Finland found that young people get their news and information from a wide variety of sources, but that television continues to be their preferred medium.
“Young people do not seem to understand the inherent value and difference in newspaper content versus other news media. TV still dominates even in perceptions of credibility and depth of coverage,” says Mr Barnard, who conducted the survey for the World Association of Newspapers and national partners in each country. .
Nevertheless, the study showed that newspaper companies are well placed to attract young readers if newspapers are committed to the task.
Full details here. |
