Moderator: Kevin English, SVP - M&E, Satayam

Michael Wolff: NYT not the future of publishing, traditional print organizations are "over", 18 months at the outside. A fascinating historical moment, general interest print is done. Model has to move "all the way," Google has established an absolutely new model. First, they don't create their own content. They don't "do" it. They have monopolized the primary revenue stream - advertising. Everyone here is looking at this and saying, "The game is changed. How do we look at this new model and mimic it or adapt to it?" How can we pay nothing at all for content is the primary strategic question. Just about using everyone's else's content (COMMENT: Not. It's about people creating their own content and putting it in the most valuable contexts. It's about the "printing press" being everywhere. Print is NOT dead, just waiting for new models to exploit it, even as electronic services expand.

Vivek Shah, Time, Inc - Fundamentals the same, you need a great product still. Way too many people knocking on marketers' doors waiting for them to help them. Voice, personality matter in successful brands, points of view matter, a change for parts of American journalism. Scale matters, need to address audiences. Google changes the scale of audiences that can be addressed effectively via advertising. As you go from PC-based web to mobile, real estate for ads is relatively small and revenue potential disappears. (COMMENT: Agreed. The fundamental experience of advertising online is deficient in comparison in many ways to the print experience. Part of the answer is new technologies, but part of the answer is also recognizing that what you do in a space where you used to do advertising has changed fundamentally online. It's about personal transactions as much as Vance Packard's "hidden persuaders.")

English: What do publishers provide now?

Shah: Looking at Time.com, you have to build the content around the formats, smaller audience for long form content. Just because you can write stuff doesn't mean that you have an online "metabolism."
Wolff: Hard to make the case that traditional print outlets know what they're supposed to be doing. Used to be the covers of Time and Newsweek changed national conversations, doesn't happen in the same way today.
Shah: People aren't racing for screen grabs. Time was launched when there were 28 dailies in Chicago alone. They responded to a glut.

English: Environment is changing, customers are changing, newest generation expects it all for free.

Bob Merrym CQ: 70 percent subscription/circ revs and high-margin ad revenues for focused audience. Shouldn't cede circulation revs.
Shah: Marketers. Google satisfies advertising ROI, rest is branding ads, which are hard to measure for success. CTRs are low. (COMMENT: The Web is not about seduction - unless you're looking for a "good time." It's about real relationships and real social transactions). The consumer movements can be overdone, there's lots of media.
Wolff: Direct model has much lower margins, direct marketers give "the piece" in the mail or the advertorial (Disagree, look at sponsorship and private media such as captive magazines, corporate blogs and forums.). Value of content has gone down consistently. Content costs less and less and less. Technology can create cheaper content, and technology itself can give functionality as well. People go to the web for technology AND function.
Oakliegh Thorne, Thorne Information Partners: People go to local papers for information, especially in local outlets. The Chicago Tribune has always been a lousy paper, so slow that they have to do features on the front page.
Merry: Community newspapers struggling, type of news is commoditized, available for free. Web practically killed my business, did kill my competitor, because it was commoditized, so we increased the value of the content. Editorial effort, extremely functional and efficient platforms to distribute. That's what you're going to have to grapple with. (COMMENT: Agreed, the basic formula, CQ bit the bullet at a great time and is reaping the rewards.)
Question: Who pays for foreign correspondents if everything's free? (Ken Wasch, President, SIIA)
Wolff: Probably no one, the "foreign bureau" goes away, and in fact in some ways HAS gone away. You can make the argument that we have more information from foreign markets than ever before. Where once we were dependent on Time magazine for foreign news, we're dependent on new sources and other sources that are on site - e.g., if the Guardian is on site, do you really need your own correspondent? Difficult to argue that we don't know more as a result.
Shah: If you look at Nielsen, sports, etc., all top ten brands are established brands (hmm, guess he's looking at different stats, but I would agree that established brands have capital and unique value as long as there's unique content.) Need voice, personality. (Didn't help NYT with columns, new voices compete.)
Merry: One of the factors is a clinging to the editorial model. (Dang, Bob gets it.) 19th century, papers were going to be objective. That's what we grew up with it, that's dead, technology destroyed it, and people in the news business don't get that. 1840's papers were highly partisan but had great coverage. (Agreed, we're getting a higher quality conversation overall, as long as it's not propaganda dominating the bandwidth). Times-Picayune used to dominate news from Mexico, made its way up and down the east coast. What we had is over, they were small businesses then, will be so again.

English: Who's the winner in this new environment?

Merry: I am! I am in Washington, where billions of dolars are being spent (CQ is indeed a very model for success, not always easy to replicate, but in the right niches it can be done well.)

Labels: events, media, SIIA Information Industry Summit 2009