The Entroporium

A recent Clay Shirky post, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” says that the newspaper as a business model is dead, killed by its reliance on industrial printing technology.  The future, he tells us, will be based on experiments in journalistic form and not any particular form of media, new or old.  Meanwhile, as I talked about in an earlier post, magazines are withering away from pressure on CPMs and reduced interest in advertisers.

My bet – or, as last as things move these days, this month’s bet – is that we’ll start to see a merging of the forms.

As Malcolm Gladwell writes in this week’s New Yorker, the biggest handicap that underdogs give themselves is engaging in competition on the terms of the stronger party.  An underdog’s chance of victory nearly triples if it finds a way to not play the game.  Right now newspapers – whether they admit it or not – find themselves the underdog for information distribution but still (so far) the best at obtaining information.  So why do they insist on sharing the same distribution models as their potential destroyers?

The New York Times' new reader uses AIR capabilities to flow text and show video. (Credit: Rafe Needleman / CNET)

The New York Times is one of the best at this.  To my knowledge, it was the first with a dedicated iPhone application, it looks great on a Kindle, and its new Adobe AIR format is simply spectacular.  Still, as everyone knows, the Times is hurting and in talks with everyone from Google to Geffen to find a suitor.

So instead of wringing our hands about public trusts and eroding institutions, perhaps we should be asking of our Third Estate “What can you do to adapt?  Something basic to your business model that doesn’t play to the other guys’ strength?”  Here are a few I’ve thought about:

• Does it really need to be daily? If people are already receiving a stream of real-time news everywhere they go and at their desks, do newspapers need to be real-time, too?  Local ‘alternatives’ with a more magazine-like format and deeper stories like the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly are well positioned to take over many of the essential local functions of a newspaper – and with lower circulation, their ad rates are less prohibitive, meaning they get the bar, restaurant and nightlife ads that are essentially blocked from big dailies.  Reliance on major retailers to be your biggest advertisers is a recipe for death in an era where retail doors will close continuously, like, forever.  (But what about the recent SF/LA closure of The Onion?  I’ll address that in a minute.)
• Does the news need to lead? Every news site has a ‘Most Frequently Viewed’ or ‘Most Frequently E-Mailed’ feature.  Let’s face it.  It’s very rare that the top stories, even on the most serious sites, are today’s news.  (Or as SFist notes about the Huffington Post today: “Boobies.  Boobies.  Boobies.  Boobies.  Boob.”)  I would hate to see our locals ignore the news, but why couldn’t it be treated like a magazine cover – with offers of advice, news coverage, quizzes…  Things that reel the reader in.

  Here are today’s SF Chronicle leads:
  *  A stricter, drier Bay to Breakers
  *  Craigslist cuts ‘erotic services’ section
  *  If state cuts too deep, it loses stimulus funds
  *  Senate testimony sheds light on alleged torture
  *  Young boost diversity as population ages

  Seriously, not a single one of these lines would sell a magazine at the checkstand.  No editorial viewpoint expressed, no help offered… simply no answer to“Why buy?”  Why not feature elements from throughout the paper?    “Take your medicine, it’s good for you” doesn’t work for marketers in any other industry, including medicine.  Why is it the norm here?

• Does it need to be shaped like a newspaper? Why not a glossy cover?  Billions of magazines have done just fine that way.  In particular, I’m a fan of The Atlantic and The New Yorker’s newsstand strategy: a single compelling image with a flap violator that entices the reader to pick up the magazine and look inside.
• Can it be targeted better than ‘It’s local, it’s yours’? In printing ‘All The News That Fits’, newspapers lose the single biggest weapon a marketer has: the freedom to select an audience.  It’s wonderful that the Chronicle expresses the region’s diversity and interests, but I think it’s fair to say that the news interests of, for example, a 70-year old woman in the Sunset and a 25-year old man in The Mission are very different.  So how come the same information in the same format is being sold to both?  Using copy splits, could different front pages go to different neighborhoods – and not just regional sections to outlying areas?
  It’s also worth noting that this could open up new revenue streams.  In my opinion, one of the seeds of the demise of The Onion in SF/LA is that it didn’t take the thinly-veiled prostitution ads that are easy money for the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly.  With CraigsList now discontinuing those same ads, that’s a lot of advertising cash set free.  Where will it go?  Well, if you had a well-targeted newspaper that didn’t need to worry about offending its audience with certain content/ads, you just might be able to scoop it up.  So, yes, I’m imagining a world where “Candy TS Outcalls” replaces Macy’s.)
• Further, why is it serving so much of the area? In an era when advertisers pay more for the specificity of an audience, why is the San Francisco Chronicle the leading paper of Contra Costa County?  And Oakland?  And most of remote Northern California?  Surely some of these readers are more profitable than others.  And those that aren’t can get their news somewhere else.
• Does every copy need to have the same content? When I received the Sunday paper, the first thing I did every week was throw away 50% or more of it.  Why not allow a la carte sections?
• Is it automatic for its customers – and especially its best ones? Mark Cuban – who got me thinking about this originally and reels off another thousand or so ideas in his blog post on the subject – points out that his local paper was blowing one of the very basic elements of keeping him engaged: pricing policies.  Aside from receiving no volume discount, Cuban says that the billing policies discourage people from staying involved.  Why aren’t subscriptions annual – or far more?  In the core areas, closest to the printer and the most attractive identified customers, especially those that own their home and are less likely to move, why not offer 5 years, 10 years, even a lifetime subscription?
• Finally, what unique advantages can newspapers bring to ‘real-time’ media? Yes, there’s still an opportunity for symmetric warfare for newspapers.  My old colleague Sebastian Provencher at Praized Media recently blogged on just this with regard to the Yellow Pages, but it applies equally well to local paopers.  His 2300-word post on real-time information flow between local merchants and customers should be required reading for local media outlets that seeks to make its revenue from being an intermediary in these relationships.  You should have a look, but I can boil it down to one tantalizing word: souq.

I’m curious for your thoughts on this since I know my few readers are newspaper lovers, too.  Don’t forget to comment!