This blog suffers from bad blogging practices according to ‘the experts’ – - not posting enough. But have been a bit bored with the subject at hand.
Other sources are keeping much better track of the details of the decline. And I’m still watching the different ideas bubbling up about what the future media world might bring.
The old media business models are still in decline. Most have been participating, but are struggling, in the free web content model supported by advertising.
The ad revenue generated by the same content on the web is one tenth of what old media makes by the print version. There’s only so much ad money available, and there’s an abundance of choices for advertisers.
Some are combining advertising with subscriptions for premium members in varing doses.
And then there’s Google, who considers itself a media company, and generates lots of money from advertising.
There are those like Rupert Murdock who think there is a need for a stronger subscription model and less reliance on advertising. He doesn’t like the idea that Google has access to his news company’s content and can serve it up on their search pages with their own advertising.
And the New York Times web site is considering going behind a ‘wall’ of paid subscriptions. In an era of abundance, they’re considering scarcity.
Old media used to own the talent and the spigot to their audience and could charge a fee for access. As well as charging a fee to advertisers for access to their audience.
Now there is no more spigot. The audience is not captured nor is the talent. They have both been set free and the flood gates are open.
