It’s all about re-inventing the businessmodel

DNA stands for Digital News Affaire and is the name of a new conference that took place at 3 and 4 march in Brussels. During two days professionals discussed the challenges of the fundamentally redefined news industry. The conclusion of the first day is clear. Whether you see the current developments as a revolution or an evolution, the challenge is to re-invent the businessmodel and find one that fits your market. Do you believe in the future of print? Focus on quality journalism, but cut the costs at the same time. Do you think the future is broadcasting via the internet? Find a way to monetize it in a culture that expects content to be free…

Two of the keynote presentations in the morning showed different views on how the news business is changing. Michael Rosenblum, president of Rosenblum TV, compares the current developments with a huge invention like the printing press 500 years ago. His main point is that it’s not about the technology, but about what it does and means. The printing press was invented to produce cheaper bibles, but instead the monopoly of churches and monarchies was gone. Printing became available for more people and ment the start of the free press. Just like wireless connections made it possible to communicate with ships on open sea, but the real invention was making a message available to everyone at the same time.

If you don’t embrace technology, you company will die
Rosenblum is making it clear that technology is irresistible. Your only choice is to embrace it, else your company will die. A well known example is Kodak. The company thought they were in the film business. “But”, says Rosenblum: “they were not. They were in the business of facilitating people with making of and looking at pictures.” This example illustrates why you have to look further than the technological change. When journalism moves to the web, it’s important to realise that the internet is a different world. It makes no sense to put a newspaper on the internet, cause the internet is not the place to read a paper. The internet is about communication, that’s why concepts like Amazon and E-Bay work.

The barrier to broadcast is gone
According to Rosenblum the news industry is facing a big revolution, that’s driven by three technologies emerging at the same time:

• cheap videocamera’s which can produce broadcast-quality
• cheap and easy to use editing-software for laptops
• internet

These developments mean that the barrier to broadcast is gone. Everything will change. It’s a frightening moment (technologie shows no pity), but also full of opportunities. Watch him explain this on YouTube:

No revolution, but evolution
Christian van Thillo, CEO of De Persgroep from Belgium, talks about evolution instead of revolution. From his point of view there might be technical revolutions, but the consumers like evolutions more. Van Thillo sees, based on research, no dramatic changes in time consumers spend on print, radio/audio and tv. Internet is not replacing that, but coming on top of it. That’s possible cause the end consumer is multitasking. What has to be analyzed better is what the internetconsumption is existing of, because people are doing a lot of different things on the internet.

There’s a future for print
De Persgroep expanded the business with radio- and tv-stations and internetactivities in the last few years, but still believes in the future of newspapers. According to the figures, print is still responsible for 62% of the revenues. Recently De Persgroep invested a lot of money in modern printing facilities. What changed is the mission, that stated in 1990 the passion for the reader and nowadays the passion for ‘the end-consumer’. Passion for the advertisor was add on to that.

Challenges for mediacompanies
Van Thillo sees the following challenges for mediacompanies:

• readership is in decline
• brand advertisers want multimedia solutions
• classified ads are moving to the internet
• local ads are threatened by online search advertising

He thinks a good story that’s well told wil always sell, despite the mediatype. The real challenge is the change of the businessmodel.

De Persgroep is redefining the businessmodel through:

• partnerships
• re-inventing advertising sales (give the advertisor the service he wants)
• agressively growing the internet business
• merchandising
• taking the passion for the reader one step further by:

• adapt the formula to new reading habits
• focus on great journalism
• great design
• good looking, modern product

Challenges for tv-broadcasters are:

• tv is not as hot as it used to be
• online opportunities are limited
• focus on merchandising, events and interactive applications through sms and voice
• IDTV is the big growth opportunity (for example digitext, games and download)

Van Thillo ends with a list of succesfactors. One of them is to realize that every market is different, so the businessmodel that’s succesfull on one market isn’t automatically succesfull for another market. A question from the audience is why he didn’t mention virtual worlds or social networks. Van Thillo answers that De Persgroep doesn’t see the businessmodel yet an that other companies probably will fit in better.

A scenario for 2018
Reiner Mittelbach from IFRA presented a scenario for 2018. The new company NEWCO wakes up Max in the morning with his favorite celebrity Kelly in 3D. She provides him with the news and facilitates him through te day. Offcourse Max doesn’t need to go to an office to work, cause he uses a virtual environment. When Mittelbach asks the audience of this scenario is likely to happen, the word ‘no’ is most heared. As a response he fires a lot of developments at high speed to the audience, well supported by figures from serious academic research. Very interesting are the remarks about technological changes that meets social and demographic changes. Check the IFRA-website for more details about the researchproject.

The role of video in journalism
During the day various CEO’s, editors and other professionals from the news industry engaged in four paneldiscussions. Most of the discussions concerned the role of video in journalism. What distinguishes video on the website of a news paper from a television-broadcast? What is so special about video or has it the same function as a good quote or infographic? How do companies monetize videocontent? Must every journalist be a VJ (videojournalist)? If costs are cut by videojournalism, why not use usergenerated content? Websites are already using raw materials photographed or filmed by citizens. What if these citizens offer edited footage (which they were able to make with cheap and easy editingtools on their laptops)? What’s left of the role of the journalist in that case?

Remarkable remarks from the paneldiscussions
A lot of questions were asked, few real answers were given. It’s clear that everybody is looking for the businessmodel of the future. All different types of news companies (newspapers, broadcasters and providers) are trying to get their share of the internet. Due to the triple play (internet, telephone and television) everybody is fishing in the same sea. A few remarkable quotes from the paneldiscussions:

• news aggregators play an increasingly important rol
• what’s the relation between games and news, how can the methodology of risk and reward be used in providing news?
• the chance for journalism is that news on the web is interactive, the journalist can ask reactions and tell the story behind the newsitem
• the journalist is moving from the storyteller to the storymoderator
• print is still highly relevant, look at markets as Japan and South-Korea (where it has innovated in a very competitive market)
• video gives the opportunity to reach new audiences
• networks have anchormans of 60 years old, as far as the youth is concerned they could be actors
• we need to say to advertisors: “we will give you 2.000 new customers” instead of “we promise you that 2 million people will probably see your ad”
• the web gives the opportunity to give the short news (like the Tageschau in 100 seconds of ARD) as well as the long story and what happened off-camera
• if you’re not able to grab a camera, shoot and edit your story, than there’s no future for a journalist in this industry

Remarkable was the contribution of Joris van Heukelom, CEO of Ilse Media but formerly responsible for the new multimedia concept DAG, during a paneldiscussion. He sees three barriers in changing the news industry:

• the CFO, who doesn’t understand businessmodels on the internet
• the chief editor, who worked for 25 years or more for an analog newspaper
• the commercial man, who is used to sell ads on paper

I’m not sure if he was joking when he said that the best way to remove these barriers is to work with a bonussystem: the journalist who goes digital will be rewarded.

Winners of the Concentra Award
On one issue everybody agreed: professionalism will be rewarded. Videojournalism is not a solution on itself: it takes a good journalist to tell a good story. At the end of the day the Concentra Award was rewarded to the best video journalism-production. The nominees told that in some situations it’s safer to travel alone as a videojournalist. Also people tend to feel more comfortable with only one journalist than a complete cameracrew. Winners of the Concentra Award this year are Tony Birtley for his breaking news item about the Myanmar Crackdown and Idar Eduin Krogstad for his documentary The Nightwatch.