Seat at the Table

First we had word of mouth (sometimes professionals, then newspapers, then radio, then television then Web based news then blogs.  Everyone thought the newest would put the last one out of business.  Not only was it not true, previous media often became bigger than ever and, in some cases (word of mouth) came back in vogue.  So remember the following whenever people start spouting about old media trembling at the feet of new media…

1. The oldest media, word of mouth, is not a hot topic for marketers.
2. Newspapers have continued to grow in terms of reach and influence well after the introduction of the next few types of media.
2. Radio, which continues to grow well after the introduction of the television (and local radio may even survive satellite).
3. Television continued to grow after the introduction of Web based news.
4. You can’t really enjoy Web based news over a cup of coffee or on the couch.  Maybe digital paper will change that, but until then, I know plenty of people that still have their Times and Journal arrive in the morning.
5. Blogs are about opinions and community.  Not news.  Don’t confuse the two.  Oh, ask the average person on the street if they get their news and opinions from blogs and their answer will usually not match the hype.
6. Big media companies own or are on their way to owning the major properties in all categories.
7.  Consumers tend to end up using all this stuff for various purposes (e.g., radio on the go, television to relax, newspapers to read at leisure, Web news to read for a quick fix, blogs to get opinions and fun commentary.

And now to address some of the common arguements as to why blogs and other new media will hurt traditional media.

• People are spending less time reading newspapers and more time reading online news, blogs and other new media – Of course they are.  The media pie is changing.  They didn’t spend anytime on new media when it didn’t exist.  Now to spend some time on it, they take away a bit from newspapers.  Hey, the family used to gather around the radio at dinner time before television was invented.  Just because they stopped gathering didn’t mean radio would go out of business.
• Heavy users of media like blogs and communities like Myspace aren’t subscribing to newspapers –   That’s becuase they are mostly the younger crowd that tend to subscribe to and read fewer papers anyway.  Let’s wait ten years and then see how they’re doing.
• Old media is not moving fast enough to change their business model – If you ran a $23 billion media company with $2 billion in net income, how fast would you be to mess with it?  Especially when you can just purchase the new media properties should they get that powerful.

So are we really looking at the death of old media?  It’s highly doubtful.  Just a bigger media pie, an adjusted business model (in the end, they’re all living off advertising – just selling and designing it in new ways) that probably all going to be owned by the same media conglomerates..