Great Times For Innovators; Tough Times For Traditionalists Part 1

January 29, 2010

REM Magazine is a print based newspaper focusing on the Canadian Real Estate Business.  An article in their latest issue by its publisher Heino Molls spoke of the troubles traditional media such as his paper are having these days.  Some of the woes Molls talks about out are:

-    “General newspaper readership is down”
-    “Some newspapers are looking desperately for new ways to generate revenue that they have lost, mostly from classified ads, but they don’t know how”
-    “Producing a good newspaper is simple.  Making money on it is hard”
-    “To get good writers you have to pay good money.  That’s the hard part”

Molls’ solution to the problem is simple: “Be a good read.  Have good information.  Have correct information and deliver the news”.

This is correct, but it isn’t the entire solution.  If it was, REM would be making money and Molls would have nothing to worry about.  Molls recognizes “people have a choice of hundreds of specialty programs on hundreds of TV channels” but he doesn’t understand the big picture of what this means for print media such as his and how print media must adapt to survive.

There are three movements within media that have fundamentally changed the face of how we engage information from the world around us, especially since the internet began.  They are:

1)    Content Specialization – over time, the availability of content in a given area gradually moves from general information toward more specific information.

The same holds true of how industries and professions are born.  Someone gets a bright, unique idea about how to do something no one else has thought of and starts a business.  For a time they’ll hold a monopoly.  They can name their price for what they offer and control the market.  Eventually, someone else will recognize the lucrative opportunity in adopting that originator’s ideas and start a competitive business.  More and more entrepreneurs over time enter the business with the same idea, creating an increasingly competitive atmosphere.  To better compete, some of these businesses will focus on a specific area of the original, unique idea and excel at it.  This is how content becomes specialized.

Here’s an example of how this plays out in media.  In times past, when magazine publishing was in its infancy, generalist magazines like Time, Life, Colliers and Harper’s were very popular.  Today, generalist magazines are largely a thing of the past – Life and Colliers are no more and Harper’s barely escaped bankruptcy during the 1980’s.

Filed under: Marketing Tips

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