The week started with John Oliver’s riff on the status of newspapers and journalism, which became an instant favorite among those with experience in the industry.
It is definitely worth watching, all the way through the whole 20 minutes. If you haven’t seen this yet, trust me. You won’t be sorry.
About the same time, we heard about layoffs at Oahu Publications, which owns the Star-Advertiser and MidWeek (as well as newspapers on Kauai and the Big Island). The reason given–the major cuts in print inserts by major retail chains like Macy’s.
And we probably haven’t seen the last of those advertising cuts, with this week’s announcement that Macy’s will be closing 100 of its stores, about 15% of the total.
And how about the longer term prospects? A recent NY Times story about Amazon’s future suggests a possible fundamental challenge to retail stores and, in turn, the newspapers that still rely on their advertising dollars.
Amazon, according to the NYT story, is farther along in its planning for use of delivery drones that has been previously assumed.
If Amazon’s drone program succeeds (and Amazon says it is well on track), it could fundamentally alter the company’s cost structure. A decade from now, drones would reduce the unit cost of each Amazon delivery by about half, analysts at Deutsche Bank projected in a recent research report. If that happens, the economic threat to competitors would be punishing — “retail stores would cease to exist,” Deutsche’s analysts suggested, and we would live in a world more like that of “The Jetsons” than our own.
Will retail stores drag the remnants of the newspaper industry down with them?
Perhaps they’ll also have to resort to Feline Friday’s to attract new readers!
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Jaaaane, stop this this crazy thing!
Media Insight recently did a poll that found only 6% of people trusted the news they were getting from the MSM.
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/only-6-trust-media-but-it-should-be-less/
In what other business enterprise would someone expect to succeed with a 6% satisfactory/approval rating from consumers? How long would a restaurant last if only 6% of diners found the food to be appetizing? Will the owner ignoring that fact improve solve the problem of customers not coming back because of mediocre food?
MSM industry veterans had better ask the same questions of their own product. Being in denial about it and telling each other about how great and wonderful their work is won’t improve flagging circulation numbers.
Newspapers need to lay off the top 20% of their management. Management is abysmal, clinging to ancient beliefs while a new religion takes over. They need to hire Millennials as the publishers if they want to survive the 21st Century. The advertising manager as a publisher model sucked when it was implemented. We all knew it.