Print pessimism be gone: How Harry Potterfication can reinvigorate publishing
Traditional media businesses are not idiots and by now, pretty much every major player has adjusted its model to become a cross-platform, multi-media content business – although with varying degrees of success and a dizzying array of business models.
But even with the recent and rapid digital developments, print ad revenue remains crucial for the industry’s survival, and the highest per cent by far of turnover for the major media publishers with digital revenue at <20 per cent of total. And while newspapers and many weekly lifestyle titles have seen print circulation decline in an ever-increasing, rolling-online-news environment, a number of monthly magazines are seeing increased circulation (e.g. Bauer) due to the fact that they have built their foundations on passion and community – two critical pillars which drive the success of print. In light of all this, two things about the sector now concern me.
The lack of joined up thinking between print and digital journalism, with often total personnel delineation between the two. The tendency of many media companies, even with a significant print readership, to put all the best stuff online, effectively penalising valuable print readers. Interactive print provides a powerful tool in the battle to address both but it is as yet, underutilised and worse, in many newsrooms, written off as a gimmick. Blippar has enjoyed more success than most in this field. Our public case-study statistics are testament to conversion rates of a staggering 50 per cent+ of print-reader circulation where solutions are well invested in, and yet cynicism remains, along with a perception that it is an advertiser’s tool rather than an editorial team’s.
Source: Media news & media jobs
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