Ken Doctor, media analyst from Newsonomics talked about the media’s unique relationship to readers and merchants and the smart use of analytics and Little Data.
The five truths Doctor mentioned are; the print decline does appear to be non-stop. “The audiences are moving from print to digital as well as the advertisers are moving billions of dollars that way,” said Doctor. The second one is rebuilding of local newspaper business is a step by step process. “There is nothing that is going to replace 20-25 billion dollar lost revenue,” he said. The third one is social medium is a huge factor. “What we read is what people share with us,” said Doctor. The fourth truth is mobile is absolute, now the internet use of news reading is done on smart phones and tablets. The last truth is that the revolution reading revenue has hit a bump. There is too much pricing but not enough product improvements.
The number one paradox is audiences are 20 times larger as the internet magnifies and the revenues that the newspapers are getting come from the small percentage. The second paradox is that the print doors are closing at different rates and places but there are lots of new opportunities with creating new journalistic products. Number three: newspapers are not investing in new products or doing new things for readers. The last paradox is “no matter how much the newspapers try to dig out from the hole but the hole just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” said Doctor.
