Great article today in the New York Times by David Carr on “The Fall and Rise of Media”. Fred Wilson commented on the article this morning on his blog. Basics of the article focus on the rapid decline of traditional media. Yeah, I know, I know… same song, second verse. Carr does a nice job of focusing his attention on the change in the way ambitious young folks are entering the “media market” in New York. Many years ago, you would hope to land some horrible low level job at a big media brand - TV, print, something traditional. While some still come to Manhattan hoping to break into traditional media, more and more of them are building their own access point through democratized media. Having been an executive at one of those large media giants (VP Corporate Development at Turner Broadcasting, division of Time Warner) and also a VC investor in the new media arena, I’ve seen this happening from both sides of the curve. My thoughts here:
1. Traditional media, especially print, still has an opportunity to change, but time is running out. The New York Times itself owns several digital brands that together account for roughly $500 mm in ad and subscription revenue according to some estimates (e.g. they own About.com). Will the NYT become a smaller company to survive and then use it’s content building prowess to build the next generation of online brands? We’ll see.
2. I thought this particular paragraph interesting - “Certain stalwart brands will survive and even thrive because of a new scarcity of quality content for niche audiences that demand more than generic information. The chip that was implanted in me when I arrived at this newspaper — you might call it New York Times Exceptionalism — leads me to conclude that this organization will be one of those, but the insurgency continues apace.” I agree wholeheartedly… one of the big reasons I love The Onion’s chances. Advertisers still value certain brands over others and are willing to pay a premium CPM for access to consumers who are loyal to those media brands.
3. One thing this article is missing is a question about whether New York itself will remain the most important geography for the media industry. While I think young media types will always tend to flock to the city - I can see a time when Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Miami… begin to rival NY’s perennial media dominance. One could argue that Silicon Valley, with Apple and Google alone, has surpassed NY and LA if the measure of dominance is potential for commercial success.
All in all, a very good article. You can follow David Carr on Twitter here.
Stay tuned…
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Paul Freet 11.30.09 at 9:37 am
I think the point about niches is important. At one time, ESPN was a tiny cable station in the sports niche. Now it is worth far more than all of ABC.
The same can be true of other media. News is generic. The details of the Dubai crisis read the same whether on the NY Times site, or the LA times. Or the Guardian. But great parody? Not generic at all and one will seek out the best creators and show brand loyalty. Might the Onion be worth more than the NY Times someday? Why not? Think how laughable the idea of ESPN’s ascendancy would have been in 1985.
Greg Foster 12.01.09 at 8:48 pm
I very much agree. I will say that certain news brands are still valuable insomuch as they remain trusted sources of content, especially those brands focused on breaking news.
Eddie Garrett 01.06.10 at 2:50 pm
I agree that certain news brands can still have value. But, if something is important (breaking news, trend, funny video, etc.,) that piece of content is going to find me. The onus is no longer on me to tune in to NBC or visit CNN.com. We now live our online lives in a distributed fashion, so destinations are no longer relevant.
John Milciunas 02.02.10 at 6:16 pm
Sounds like its time for Chris to step up and do some deals with some of that dough from his second bite of the apple.