Convergence: Fact or Fiction?


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Quotes from the conference

"The lessons learned on the internet are that our readers don't always want to read text. They also want to view images, interact with a poll, listen to a radio broadcast, watch a Flash animation or participate in a chat session. Every time we give our customers an interesting new option, we delight them. When they are delighted, they come back for more, and more often. When we cross promote our coverage from print to web, from web to TV, from radio to magazines, we are directing our customer to the best news coverage we have to offer, in an effort to delight them."

"Cross promotions should not happen just when you have time; they should be part of a planned strategy, and should be the responsibility of an editor. Promotions work, they do drive readership from one medium to another, and they are a fundamental expectation of a multimedia organisation."

Martha Stone, Consultant, Innovation International Media Consulting Group and Editor of the Online Newspapers & Multimedia Newsrooms Newsletter, USA

"The bridge between print and online editions is a very fragile, complex bridge."

"Are we going to see the birth of new professions, such as information controllers to sort out the information and route it according to the reader's profile?"

André Jaunin, Director of Development, Edipresse Publications, Switzerland


"Is convergence taking place, or is it fiction? Some of the stories we've heard coming out of the US, particularly in Florida, is that convergence is high on publicity but low on fact. The real question is, is it going to happen?

Timothy Balding, Director General, World Association of Newspapers

"I first heard the word 'convergence' in 1993. It was Nicholas Negroponte who first came up with the idea that the telephone, television and computer would all be in the same place. Since 1993, the idea of convergence has been six months away – in that period, it's always been six months away."

Jim Chisholm, Managing Director, Business a.m., Scotland

"Convergence is less a challenging intellectual or strategic exercise, it's more an implementation issue. It's pretty simple in theory what people say needs to be done. But the question is, can we implement it with staff and technology?"
Roger Parkinson, President of the World Association of Newspapers
"Convergence, treated the way we are talking about it, is little more than common sense."

Ian Davies, Director of Group Development, Eastern County Newspapers, UK

"One of the more radical suggestions (in a workshop) was that we have to look at the age of the people we employ. Because we're going to have to bring in youth as we move in the digital world."

Allan Marshall, Group Technology Director, Associated Newspapers, UK

"People are more interested in themselves and in their own information. They're more interested in paying for sending information than they are in paying to receive information."

Monique van Dusseldorp, President & CEO, Van Dusseldorp & Partners, The Netherlands

"Newspaper publishers and technology haven't mixed very well. As an industry, we haven't led the pack."

"The level of spending on IT is continuous if you have to match innovation."

"How often have you seen strategy blown off course because you have to navigate around a big prima donna?"

David Jones, Managing Director, Vio Worldwide, UK

Friday quotes from the conference

"Interactivity brings about a communications power shift and consumers recognise it and they like it. It puts the power in the hands of the consumer."

"The successful business models that seek to exploit platform convergence will be based on content convergence."

Mike Bloxham, Chief Executive, Netpoll Ltd., United Kingdom

"Advertising isn't simply a growth business Ð it's a wonderful growth business."

"One of the great problems in the advertising world is the cyclicability of advertising expenditures. It's certainly a greater problem for you now than anything in the electronic media. When times get tough, advertising is chopped."

Mike Waterson, CEO, World Advertising Research Centre, United Kingdom

 

The 2001 WAN/IFRA

World Forum on Newspaper Strategy


Daily News

Thursday 27 - Friday 28 September, 2001
Manoir de Gressy, France

Summaries of presentations from the World Forum on Newspaper Strategy 2001, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and Ifra.

For more information -- including the soon-to-be-published Conference Report -- contact Donna Pentier, Director WAN Training & Events, 25 rue d'Astorg, 75008 Paris France, Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49 48. E-mail: dpentier@wan.asso.fr

To see the summaries of Thursdays presentations, click here.

To download full presentations, click here. (Password protected area)

Friday, 28 September

It's Not About the Brand

Mike Bloxham, Chief Executive, Netpoll Ltd.,
United Kingdom

Forget about brand loyalty – consumers are more attracted to speed and convenience when it comes to their new media choices, says Mr Bloxham.
"They won't spend all their time with you – they don't do it now, so why would they in the future? The new media landscape is multifaceted and will continue to be so. Potential benefit to users will outstrip loyalty to one source."

Mr Bloxham, whose firm assesses consumer attitudes towards new media, talks about a "convergence conundrum" – "the greater the degree of platform convergence, the greater the potential for content divergence."

Put another way, the more information is available, the less intrinsic value it has. "We're always going to be giving plenty of stuff away for free in this industry, partly because you can get it elsewhere," says Mr Bloxham, adding that there is "a lack of value on the new channels, particularly when they provide repurposed content."

Companies that rely on brand value alone aren't going to make it, he says. And he listed the following critical factors for succeeding in new media: be true to who you are and don't try to reinvent yourself; develop offerings that put you in dialogue with customers; don't run 'stand alone' new media departments; don't plan on any one development becoming ubiquitous; and question whether you want to act across all platforms in the first place.
Where's the Money?


Mike Waterson, CEO, World Advertising Research Centre, United Kingdom

"The whole business of technology hype has been going on for 10 years now, and the internet is still taking only 1 percent of advertising share. There is still great solidity in the old media," says Mr Waterson.

Despite the hype, the internet is not a good place for advertising – or, at least, for display advertising. "Advertising tends to work on a completely emotional basis, it's not based on information," says Mr Waterson. "The new media is great for providing information. They're lousy at providing anything an advertiser wants."

"The great thing about newspapers in this world is, you do actually focus on them to a great extent, and people read the ads," he says.

Advertising is a growth business despite the recent downturn, and newspapers continue to benefit from that growth and will continue to do so for a long time to come, he says.
But classified advertising is a different story – "it's the area where you have the most to fear. The problem is very simple – internet classified are better, faster, and in most cases cheaper. You can sort and rank and shape things in a way you can't in print. It has all the advantages that normally allow a product to sweep away older products."

In the long term, classified ads will migrate to electronic media, he says.

To see the summaries of Thursdays presentations, click here.