Print Media Popular Online, But Money Is a Problem
Despite years of hype about the impact of bloggers and the so-called towering Tail on the news business, traditional media sources are increasingly popular online even as their offline businesses continue to go south.
The notion of “The towering Tail” was that a great multiplicity of blogs and citizen journalism sites could match or exceed the value of traditional news gathering. But the reality is “more complex,” says the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s new report, State of the News Media 2008.
“Looking closely, a clear case for democratization is harder to manufacture,” the report said. “Even with so many new sources, more public now consume what old-media newsrooms produce, particularly from print, than before.”
Advertising Woes
Indeed, traditional media, derided by some as “mainstream media,” represents more of an oligarchy online than in print. According to researcher Matthew Hindman, the top 10 news sites represent 29 percent of all Web traffic but only 19 percent of newspaper
In the newspaper sector, circulation fell 2.5 percent and overall advertising revenue fell 7 percent in 2007. Even online advertising grew just 20 percent, compared to 30 percent growth in previous years.
“For 2008, the hope is that a collaboration of more than 400 daily papers with Yahoo will generate a kick of as much as 10 percent to 20 percent in online advertising considering it will be much easier to buy and place ads under the new arrangement,” the report said.
Hope in Innovation
Newspaper Web sites are much improved — with “a 24/7 diet of breaking news, an array of multimedia features and a wave of redesigns” — but they have yet to figure out how to adequately monetize the efforts, the report said. The New York Times killed its online paid subscription service, which had 200,000 subscribers, and Rupert Murdoch announced plans to unleash much…
Orginal post by Computer blog from technology-blog.com
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