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Hugo Drayton, Managing Director, Hollinger Telegraph New Media, United Kingdom
When newspapers started setting up Web sites, creating new brands was
all the rage. But the latest trend is to bring the old-media and new-media
brands back together, says Hugo Drayton of Hollinger Telegraph New Media.
In 1994, Drayton helped set up The Electronic Telegraph, one of Britain’s first online news sites. Today, that site has been redesigned and rebranded as Telegraph.co.uk. The site’s design is consistent with the new design drawn up for the print editions of the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph.
The Telegraph’s specialised sites have also been rebranded, as Sport.Telegraph.co.uk, Travel.Telegraph.co.uk, and so on. On the print side, Telegraph.co.uk is listed right on the page-one nameplate, and the paper’s technology section – which formerly went by the title “Connected” – now has more of a no-nonsense name: “dotcom.telegraph.”
Drayton sees the roles of print and online as complementary and mutually supportive: “I don’t think there’s any chance that newspapers will disappear,” he said. But a newspaper’s print edition and its Web site each has to serve its proper role, with ample cross-promotion between the two.
“Internet usage continues
to rise fast, but users are more selective about sites they visit. Most
users will only use a small portfolio of some five to eight sites that
they visit regularly.”
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In Drayton’s view, the newspaper can no longer be the primary vehicle for breaking news. “We’re not in that game,” he said. Rather, it’s up to Web sites and wireless links to provide quick news updates, and it’s up to newspapers to provide “depth, context, background and understanding of what lies behind the daily news.” Cross-promotion is essential for steering online users to the print product, and newspaper readers to the Web site.
Looking ahead, Drayton sees “areas of great growth potential”:
Pay-per-view Internet
services, modelled after premium phone services.
Licensing of popular online features such as Telegraph.co.uk’s “Fantasy
Football” game.
Potential cost savings by putting niche news
such as detailed stock listings, horse racing cards and speech transcripts
on the Web rather than on newsprint.
Online radio.