GANAHL ON MEDIA: Let Google Fix It

What’s a column on media without media predictions for the upcoming year? Right now everybody is in the prediction business. A Google search for ‘2010 media predictions’ resulted in over 9 million hits in just 0.22 seconds, really! And why be bashful, because who keeps score anyway? Twelve months from now, I’ll be lucky to find this column, much less measure its predictive value! So, here’s my 2010 media predictions.  

1. Make Google Fix It: Yes, you read it right…Make Google Fix It. This year has been abysmal in almost every way for almost every media. Earlier columns document a media industry suffering from its largest-ever advertising revenue decline, unimaginable industry job losses, and stunted collegiate career aspirations. The solution? Make Google Fix It.  

Certainly President Obama and his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are no shrinking violets in the face of economic meltdowns. Look at their treatment of the automobile industry: forced dealership closures, forced bankruptcies, forced management changes, forced changes in union contracts: need I go on? 

Google is best positioned among the media titans for this type of operation: it’s profitable, it’s digital, it’s responsive and it has a corporate jet big enough to round up the industry’s limping moguls and dictate a solution.  

Wish I could be a fly on the wall when Eric, Sergey and Larry dress down Chicago’s Sam Zell, New York’s Aurthur Sulzberger and MySpace’s Rupert Murdoch!  

2. Apple and AP Launch iAP: a digital news app: This seems such a no brainer, I’m almost embarrassed to publish it under my byline! Steve Jobs, a.k.a. M3, or ‘micro-payment-music mogul’ redeemed Shawn Fanning's peer-to-peer music sharing model (yeah Boston’s Northeastern University!), pioneered a business model that distributes digital music files, and brought peace to the music industry’s many competing participants...all for 99 cents a song! Oh, and I almost forgot…iTunes controls almost 70% of the industry’s download business!  

AP, a non-profit news organization owned by its 1,500 daily newspaper members, argues it’s the world’s largest news organization with almost 5,000 journalists. It distributes worldwide multi-platform content through its global news bureaus network to 1,700 newspapers and over 5,000 radio and television stations. AP CEO Thomas Curley was weaned on legacy media having conducted the initial feasibility study for USA Today founder Al Neutharth.  

So what’s the hook? Easy…AP dominates global content creation, and Apple dominates global digital distribution. As an added bonus, Shawn Fanning gets the job as the joint venture’s VP of Technological Innovation!  

3. AP Bets Content Is King And Announces IPO: Nearly 170 years ago, The Associated Press launched as a cooperative news service that merged a network of daring overland riders, high-speed ponies, and telegraph wires to bring news about the Mexican War 700 miles to four New York City newspapers. Today, it boasts of the world’s largest newsroom with almost 5,000 journalists that distribute content across all platforms to 1,700 newspapers and more than 5,000 radio and television stations. 

Impressive enough, but its business model is threatened by the free digital distribution of content through Internet aggregators such as Google, AOL, Yahoo! and millions of other sites. In announcing its IPO, AP CEO Thomas Curley may say, “The market is stabilizing and the Street’s major investment houses seem poised to rebound. We are a content business, like Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal. This model works for them, and we think it will work for AP.” Be careful about holding this stock for the long haul. I rate it as a buy and a quick sell!  

4. While Content Is Free It’ll Be Harder To Find: The major content producers cling to, and whine about their outdated business model through 2010. As they watch revenues decline (or stagnate at best) they hide content from search engines or behind pay walls. Murdoch’s threat to with hold content from Google reported in Newsweek offers a hint of what will come. Don’t worry, Wikipedia gets in the daily news business and launches the Wiki Daily!  

5. Michelle Obama Premieres Talk Show On Oprah Channel: In 2010 Michelle grows weary of the ‘White House Mom’ dream. Inspired by Hillary Clinton’s life-after-the-White-House-Mom model, Michelle partners with Oprah on a cable talk show that goes head to head against ABC’s The View. The Clinton’s and the Obama’s battle to re-capture the White House! “If it worked for the Bush pop and son team, it will work for our husband and wife team,” Michelle may challenge.  

6. Comcast Partners With Philadelphia’s Tierney In Newspaper Venture: Still pumped from his NBC purchase, tri-athlete and Comcast CEO Michael Roberts grows weary and suspicious of the New York media elite (after all he’s a Philadelphia cheese steak kind of guy!). Enamored by media impresario and Philadelphia Inquirer publisher Brian Tierney’s plea to ‘keep it at home,’ Roberts buys 52% of the Inquirer. “After all, I love the PI’s sports section,” Roberts may claim.  

7. !!GABANG!! Challenges Social Media Giants: Fearing irrelevance, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Jerry Yang launch !!GABANG!!, a social media site for angst-ridden Baby Boomers. “Hey we believe in this thing,” Ballmer may yell, “that’s why we have four…count them…four exclamation marks! Our names are riding on this!’ !!GABANG!! cleverly (!) uses two letters from each of the founder’s last name. It’s rumored Microsoft founder Paul Allen is composing !!GABANG!!’s musical jingle.  

8. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Share Nobel Peace Prize: Sweden’s Nobel Foundation awarded this year’s Nobel Peace to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for their contributions to Iran’s regime change. The Nobel Foundation praised the social media sites for their work in mobilization and communication. “We’re sorry Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has cancelled his personal accounts with the sites,” a foundation spokesperson may explain, “but in the long run he’ll renew, he was an avid Twitterer!”  

9. Dreamers Rule and Innovation Rocks The Next Decade: Dream-driven young people have fueled this media revolution. Berners-Lee, Gates, Allen, Jobs, Wozniak, Case, Dell, Waitt, Andreesen, Bezos, Omidyar, Fanning, Brin, Page, Anderson, DeWolf, Zuckerberg, Hughes, Hurley, Chen, Karim and thousands of others rocked our status quo. Armed with, and bound by nothing these dreamers changed our world. The Next Decade belongs to them and those like them. Dreamers Rule!

Photo Credits: Official White House Portrait of Michelle Obama; Bill Gates and Paul Allen by
Doug Wilson/Corbis

GANAHL ON MEDIA: The J-Grad Job Crisis

QUESTION: What are the odds of finding meaningful careers in journalism and mass communications (J&MC) for the more than 50,000 students graduating in 2009-10 from the country’s 480 plus schools with 4-year communication programs?

ANSWER: While it’s impossible to be precise, history may guide us. The authors of the annual graduate report conclude that 2008 graduates in “journalism and mass communications programs found themselves in a disastrous job market” according to the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communications Graduates.

And the authors should know: this is the survey’s 23rd year. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and a number of media, media associations and educational institutions sponsor the survey, which is conducted by the Grady College of J & MC at the University of Georgia. The Cox Research Center director is Dr. Lee B. Becker.

The survey results are based on a sample of 2,542 undergraduate and graduate students, and represent a 32% return rate of the initial 9,526 surveys mailed. The sample error for the undergraduate sample is 2.0% (N=2,360), and 7.3% for the graduate sample (N=182). Surveys were collected from October 2008 to March 2009.

So, just how disastrous was the career market for 2008 J&MC graduates? More importantly, what career strategies does this suggest for the 2009-2010 graduate?

Overall 60% of the 2008 graduates found full-time employment six to eight months after graduation, and “only half of the graduates had full-time work in the field of communication.” A year earlier, 70% of the 2007 graduates found full-time employment. The unemployment rate for the 2008 graduates was 17.5% compared to 13% for 2007 graduates.

It’s worth noting that the rate of full-time employment among the various curriculum specialties in the 2008 survey ranges from 56% for broadcasting, to 59% for print journalism, to 65% for advertising and 71% for public relations.

The median starting salary reported in the 2008 survey for those finding full-time employment was $30,000 for undergraduate degrees and $38,000 for graduate degrees. Becker notes this is “the same average salary” reported in the 2007 survey, and compares to the $49,224 average starting salary offer for all 2008 college graduates reported by the National Association of Colleges and employers (NACE). The median annual salaries among the various degree specialties varies considerably, and ranges from $24,000 for television, to $26,000 for weekly newspapers, to $29,000 for daily newspapers, to $31,000 for public relations, to $33,800 for cable television.

So, what kind of future does this survey suggest?

Trends in the national unemployment rate suggest 2009 graduates will face even more hostile conditions. Unemployment rates during the 2008 survey time period ranged from 6.6% in October 2008 to 8.5% in March 2009. In just a year the unemployment rate has soared nearly 60% to 10.2% in October 2009. Business Week noted there was little evidence that the more than 18% unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds would change anytime soon “potentially creating a kind of ‘lost generation.’” Please see graphic published on October 19, 2009 by Business Week.

And, what can the 2009 J&MC graduate do?

First, knowledge is power. Simply by reading this column you are being proactive. Immerse yourself in current changes related to your field, and become an expert in understanding the forces and trends shaping your future. Arm yourself with the currency of relevant and timely information.

Second, diversify your career aspirations and cross-train among the various media platforms. Write often, take many pictures, shoot much video and record multiple interviews. Specialize in multi-media story telling. Lead your colleagues in the march to the Internet, and join the vanguard of digital innovators.

Third, become a content area expert. Grow passion for your favorite subject and promote yourself relentlessly. The New York Times’ recent profile of Bill Simmons and his rise from “an obscure online sports commentator” to “perhaps America’s most famous sports columnist” as the ESPN Sports Guy is both inspiring and telling. The digital highway holds the promise of many career paths.

Is the career goblet half empty or half full for the 2009 J&MC graduate ?

You decide.

GANAHL ON MEDIA: A Fed Bailout?

Want to start an argument with a journalist? Easy. Demand their reporting notes, insist they reveal the names of confidential sources, or suggest they seek government funding to keep their legacy media afloat. And that’s the controversial suggestion Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson make in their report The Reconstruction of American Journalism commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School.

The two are no strangers to the practice and study of media. Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post teaches at Arizona State University, and Schudson is a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. The Columbia Journalism Review published a 35-page summary (which I have read) of the complete 100-page October report (which I have not read) on media’s current condition and strategies to salvage the legacy.

Reactions to the report have been widespread and range from CJR’s digitally published comments to media columnists such at The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, to even Twitter where the debate can be followed as #columbiajreport. An ironical footnote to the report’s release is it occurred in the same week The New York Times announced plans to reduce its newsroom by 100 positions, and the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported newspaper circulation declined almost 11% in 2009. Please see the accompanying table published in The New York Times.


So, how did Downie and Schudson incite this debate?

They conclude, “Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages, and the hegemony that near-monopoly metropolitan newspapers enjoyed during the last third of the twentieth century, even as their primary audience eroded, is ending.” They remind us that the number of newspaper editorial employees has dropped 33% from 60,000 in 1992 to 40,000 today.

But, you might ask, aren’t all things, including the business models of media moguls, shaped by evolution? Isn’t survival of the fittest a business world imperative? Not necessarily.

The duo quotes a Knight Foundation commission that suggests independent reporting “is as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools, and public health.” In fact, it is this reporting, or accountability journalism as they call it, which “undergirds democracy” as it performs the press’ watchdog function. They believe that only legacy media and their outsized newsrooms can sustain this type of reporting.

While they celebrate the plethora of online news operations launched by entrepreneurs, philanthropists and universities, they conclude, “it is unlikely that any but the smallest of these news organizations can be supported” by current online revenue.

Given the enormity of responsibility the pair ascribes to legacy media, namely the perpetuation of democracy, their six strategies to save newspapers seem almost simplistic. These strategies include reduced taxes through nonprofit status, increased philanthropic donations, university-supported reporting, wider access to public databases, heightened pressure on public broadcasters to provide local news, and government funding of editorial functions.

Certainly, it’s highly unlikely the government will appoint a media czar to restructure an industry already well on its way to being reinvented by its more innovative practitioners and experimental consumers. Still, the report is a provocative analysis of media’s traditions, foibles and best practices. And it should be studied because it may inspire novel and enduring changes.

GANAHL ON MEDIA: State of News Media

OK, I admit it: I’m an addict…a stat-addict. To be sure, I’m not alone, there are many stat-addicts: sport-stats, market-stats, caloric-stats, you name it. Me, I’m a media-stat addict, and I can’t get enough stats about circulation, advertising or site traffic. Lucky for me I found the mother lode of all media stats, the Pew Research Center’s The State of the News Media: An Annual Report on American Journalism. The series of reports are the work of the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ).

The 2009 report is the 6th in a 6-year series beginning in 2003. It analyzes 9 major media sectors across 5 areas: audience, economics, newsroom investment, ownership and digital journalism. Its analysis is based on ‘aggregating as much publicly available data as possible,” and PEJ’s own extensive content analyses. At 180,000 words, or 700 plus printed pages, and dozens of charts it is mammoth. Go figure: that’s over one million words during the 6-year project! The online edition allows us true stat-addicts to sift the data and create our own multi-variable charts. Cool, huh?

So…what is the ‘state of the news media?’ PEJ concludes that the 6th annual report “is also the bleakest.” While equal numbers of news seekers still seem to value the practices and values of traditional journalism, they are increasingly abandoning legacy media as sources of traditional news, and migrating to ‘on demand,’ online platforms. These online platforms deliver news when audiences want it, in formats they want. These formats include wi-fi, mobile, social networking sites, blogs, video, microblogs, RSS and e-mails. News audiences now “hunt and gather what they want when they want it.” Additionally, many of these news seekers then share, or repurpose the content through the very same platforms they initially hunted.

Thus, the crisis is less about audience size, and more about audience migration, and the resulting shifts in platform revenue from legacy media to online media. The gains in online platform revenue are nowhere equal to the losses in legacy media revenue. PEJ describes it is as the “decoupling …of advertising from news.” Add to this today’s economic collapse, which has “at least doubled the revenue losses”, caused by the migration of audiences from legacy media and you start to appreciate the depth of the crisis.

So what are the media habits of these online news hunters and gatherers that are precipitating such change? PEJ concludes that while those that use the Internet has remained relatively constant for the last several years at 70% to 75% of the country’s population, they increasingly ‘hunt and gather’ for news more frequently and for longer periods of time.

Nielsen's ranking of the top 10 news sites

Moreover, online platforms seem to be more popular sources of news when compared to most traditional news sources. According to a Pew Research Center survey (August 2008) 37% of the total Internet users go online for news at least 3 times a week, compared to the 29% that watch network nightly news and the 22% that watch network morning shows. Another PRC survey (December 2008) found 40% relied on online sources for national and international news compared to 35% that relied on newspapers. Where do they seek their online news? PEJ reports the top 5 most popular news sites in 2008 according to Nielsen Online are MSNBC, Yahoo! News, CNN, AOL News and The New York Times.

As to the future of legacy media, PEJ concludes, “There are growing doubts…about whether the generation in charge has the vision and boldness to reinvent the industry.” I agree. The skills necessary for traditional journalism don’t readily translate into online entrepreneurship. The future of legacy media is tied to their ability to forge increased collaborations with innovative online partners. And that…means more excitement for us stat addicts! Stay tuned.

GANAHL ON MEDIA: How Dire Is It?

Today more people rely on the Internet than newspapers for national and international news. For those involved in traditional media, the question of the moment is survival. How threatened are traditional media? How deep is this crisis, and when will it get better?

In a word…the crisis is dire. Hopefully it will get better, but this may take a very long time.

Consider total reported advertising revenues for the first half of 2009. Advertising Age reports that overall ad revenues measured by Nielsen are down almost 16% during the first 6 months 0f 2009 when compared with the same period in 2008.

The only two media categories among the 19 measured categories reporting increases during the first half of 2009 are Cable TV with a 1.5% increase and Spanish Language Cable TV with a 0.6% increase. Internet ad spending is down 1% during this period. Please see the table titled Year-to-Year Change in Ad Spend, by Media published September 2, 2009 in Advertising Age.

The media most impacted by this crisis are newspapers. Richard Pe’rez-Pena reports in The New York Times that newspaper revenues fell almost 29% during the first half of 2009 according to the Newspaper Association of America. Also, the NAA reports that the current rate of decline in newspaper ad revenues is accelerating from the 2007 decline of 16.7%, and the 2006 decline 7.9%.

More over, the current precipitous decline represents long-term erosion in newspaper ad revenues. Ryan Chittum concludes in the Columbia Journalism Review that “(the 2009 decline) understates just how awful the numbers are…You have to go back to 1965 to find a year with revenue lower in 2009 dollars than what this year is projected to be.” Do the math…newspapers are an industry with revenues little improved for almost 45 years ago!

Declines in newspaper circulation mirror its revenue declines. The NAA reports paid circulation for daily newspapers totals 48.497 million in 2008. This translates to a 41.8% penetration level of the total 116 million US households in 2008. The last time paid circulation for daily newspapers totaled 48 million was in 1945! Paid circulation for daily newspapers peaked at 63.34 million in 1984.

There are several websites devoted to chronicling newspapers’ traumas. One of the most interesting is Paul Gillin’s Newspaper Death Watch. The NDW tracks those forces that Gillin thinks will “ultimately destroy 95% of American major metropolitan newspapers.” These forces include newspapers’ high fixed costs such as equipment, paper and labor.

Gillin calls himself an optimist and thinks “this painful decline will give birth to a new model of journalism built upon aggregation and reader-generated content." His site lists 12 metropolitan dailies including the Rocky Mountain News and the Baltimore Sun that have closed since the site’s beginning in March 2007. It also lists 8 dailies including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Ann Arbor News that have ‘adopted hybrid online/print or online-only models.’

Another site, paper cuts uses mapping software to depict ‘layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers.’ St. Louis designer, journalist and site creator Erica Smith reports almost 32,000 newspaper jobs have been lost, and 31 daily and weekly newspapers have closed since June 2007. The site also reports salary and benefit reductions at various newspapers.

Of course other media are also severely impacted. Jason Fells reports in FOLIO that according to the Publishers Information Bureau consumer magazine ad pages fell almost 30% in the 2nd quarter of 2009 compared to the same 2008 time period. This compares to the 11.7% ad page decrease in 2008 when compared to 2007.

And, what about media’s future? How guarded are the predictions? Pe’rez-Pena reports in the NYT that while the rate of decline in advertising revenue seems to be slowing, many analysts think it will be 2010 before we see any substantial improvement.

PEW: The New News Media-Scape

PEW rocks when it comes to media use studies.

I found this gem and knew it had to go viral! I am also

most impressed with how easy the slides posted on the blog through slideshare! Nice job slideshare, I plan to use you often!

2009 Feb 17 Public Broadcasters

View more presentations from Pew Internet.

Ganahl Media Opens New Office

Sent from my iPhone
Ganahl Media opens new world headquarters on bank of Susquehanna River, Pa. Publisher Richard Ganahl says, "This location offers plenty of room for growth and I'm a sucker for an office with a view!" Ganahl says plans for an 'open' house will be announced soon.

Marshall McLuhan On Media Messages

McLuhan's 'medium is the message' mantra seemed so revolutionary 40 years ago. Hot media...cold media...media being the extension of human senses...it was all so new to those raised by Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver and I Love Lucy. TV's technology, its fast cuts and tight shots mesmerized us. McLuhan was the first to recognize video's impact on culture.

But what about today? Is the 'medium still the message?' No...not at all. The multi-media milleu of the social network mirages and their 'converged' partners no longer overwhelm the senses with their novelty. No...the medium is no longer the message. Its role as content is now replaced by the audience...the audience is now the message, and the medium serves only as...the medium.

Today the medium is just that...the medium. It is a conduit, a scrapbook, a personalized e-billfold with pictures and tweets and pokes and tags and groups and blogs. Today...the medium is the medium, the audience is the message and the individual is both the sender and receiver of its own content.