STUFF BY ME WEEK-ENDING 5 DEC 2009

So, I had brunch with my friend (and fellow ThreeWeeks founder) Geraint Preston this morning, he having just flown in from New York for a week in London town.

Our conversation gravitated, as it often does, to the future of the media - and in particular the newspaper industry - in this here internet age. This is a conversation I'm pretty sure we used to have quite regularly when setting up ThreeWeeks back in 1996. We should probably think of something else to talk about.

It's still a timely topic for discussion thirteen years on, though, because it's only really this year that the newspaper industry has finally set about the task of finding a sustainable business model for internet publishing. Sure, they've all been operating websites for years now, some for over a decade, but it seems to have been this year when pretty much every editor and proprietor has accepted that printed newspapers won't be anything more than a loss-leading promotional tool in the years to come, and that they, therefore, need to work out how to make money out of publishing online.

Because of the internet, the main British newspapers are now talking to more people than ever before, and on a more regular basis, and increasingly internationally. In fact some UK papers are fast becoming truly global media, The Guardian in particular, which enjoys great popularity among certain audiences in certain countries, like the USA, where accessible professional left-leaning uber-liberal journalism isn't always so easy to come by.

Yet, despite the increase in overall readership and influence, the British newspaper industry is in a mess. All titles are seeing their print circulations fall, and the smaller the circulation, the less cost efficient newspaper operations become. Online editions may be getting good traffic, but ad revenues, while rising, are nowhere near good enough to cover the costs of creating the timely content that fills these sites, especially if newspapers feel the need to start producing audio and video content to compete with the TV and radio news-providers that are starting to provide text-based reportage.

Newspaper companies also have the problem of having to continue to print actual newspapers at the same time as funding the development and operation of 24/7 online news services. The latter is almost certainly cheaper to run than the former, but that's only a help if the former can be shut down (printing 20,000 less newspapers than before doesn't result in huge cost savings). And no national newspaper in the UK has yet been bold enough to go the online only route.

And, of course, while the amount of ad money being spent in the internet domain may be on the rise, there is more competition for that cash. The Google and Yahoos of this world are getting a large slice of the online advertising pie, and they don't invest that money into content creation but into the cheaper provision of free email, search, content distribution and web storage facilities, services which will generate the same sort of traffic as more expensive original content.

And then those content providers who traditionally didn't tap into advertising and sponsorship for revenue - the music and film industries for example - are increasingly looking at ways to generate ad revenue around their content instead of, or as well as, charging consumers for access to their products (mainly because they feel they have to be able to compete with illegal online content services, who provide access to content for free).

And it's worth noting the rise of so called 'outdoor advertising' - billboards and poster spots on trains and buses. This has been a growth area for sometime, and must surely be hitting traditional media. Certainly a crack down on fly-posting in Edinburgh, and the resulting establishment, by the City Council, of a festival poster site monopoly, hit our ThreeWeeks ad sales a little. And the owners of billboards don't invest any of their revenue in generating new content, or providing useful internet services, that money just goes into the pockets of landowners.

None of which is good news for the newspaper industry whose online business model just now is almost exclusively ad-revenue based. Which is why the newspaper business is, once again, thinking seriously about the online subscription model, something which some publishers played with at the start of the decade, but which only a handful have successfully mastered, and then mainly for business-orientated titles like the FT and Wall Street Journal.

The biggest newspaper man, Rupert Murdoch, has, of course, been talking a lot about charging for access to his newspapers' websites this year - we reported on his most recent ramblings in CMU here - and it's expected that some of his titles will introduce subscriptions sometime next year. Other newspaper groups around the world have similar plans, while the rest seem to be watching the Murdoch group carefully - if The Times et al can crack a workable subscription model, the rest will follow.

But some remain cynical of even Murdoch's chances of persuading web users to part with a few pounds a month to access his newspapers' content. The FT and WSJ model only works, some say, because its readers need the information they publish for their jobs, and many charge their subs to their employers. Their target readership are also very cash rich (despite the banking crisis). And because most other newspapers have been making all their content available for gratis for several years now, some argue it's too late to suddenly start charging.

Geraint, as we consumed our greasy spoon breakfast, seemed pessimistic of Murdoch et al's chances in turning things round. I'm more optimistic, though as a publisher myself that's possibly wishful thinking.

However, I do believe a sizable audience will be persuaded to pay for access to good journalism sitting under a Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Mail, Sun or Mirror banner. None of those titles can charge for simple news or gossip, that era is definitely gone, there are too many free sources of news, both online, and via rolling TV news stations. All newspapers should make simple news available on their home page for free, as a shop window of what issues are being written about elsewhere on their site that day. 

But when its comes to informed analysis and comment, sound navigation of the vast swamp of news and events, and good humour and writing, if that content is behind a virtual wall, then I believe some people will pay. Providing the payment process is simple and the content easily accessible once you're over the wall, with minimum commercial intrusion (so no more ads appearing over articles, or features split across multiple web pages to boost page impressions).

People will also pay for access to the musings of certain journalists. I know numerous people who'd pay £2-3 a month to The Guardian if it got them access to a guaranteed eight Charlie Brooker columns.

Though this last point is both good and bad news. Good news because it might make newspapers hone in on and better reward their good writers, and cut loose all those mediocre hacks who are padding out all those Sunday supplements with badly written ego pieces. Bad news, though, because there is also a danger newspapers will pump their money into celebrity columnists who attract paying punters not with good writing, but with their celeb status.

But either way, and despite conceding some of my optimisim in my debate with Geraint, I remain positive for the future of newspapers (albeit primarily in an online form). Though, as with all media and content industries, these are uncertain times. Some will fall, and those who succeed are still probably facing a tricky couple of years ahead.

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STUFF I DID THIS WEEK
The Brunswick Internship Programme, run by our partners Unicorn Jobs, ended last week, and came to a formal close on Wednesday night with a little party here at Unicorn House. This internship involves six black and ethnic minority graduates from the University Of East London, and aims to address the lack of diversity in the PR industry by reaching and training talented grads from communities where the communications sector rarely actively recruits.

I've been very involved in this year's internship, running two three hour sessions a week, covering the whole media industry, basic journalism skills, plus a little bit on press release writing, printing, copyright and even politics. I think its fair to say the programme has been a big success, with two of the UEL grads involved now about to start trainee contracts with Brunswick, a third spending two weeks with the company's arts PR division, and the other three well primed to launch their own communications careers. I wish them all the best of luck! 

Given this year's success, it's looking likely we'll be doing this programme at least twice next year, which is great news. Anyone out there interested in supporting the venture in any way should get in touch.
 
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STUFF I WROTE THIS WEEK
A round up of some of the news stories and articles I wrote for UnLimited's media in the last seven days...

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MUSIC BUSINESS STUFF...

Downloads most important development in three decades of music [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

ERA identify opportunities in high street music market [CMU Daily 01/12/09]

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COPYRIGHT STUFF...

Virgin to track file-sharing [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

Spanish industry rally over piracy [CMU Daily 02/12/09]

Canadian BitTorrent search service sues the majors [CMU Daily 02/12/09]

Net firms formally object to Digital Economy Bill clause 17 [CMU Daily 03/12/09]

Not much joy: The tricky issue of major label royalty reporting [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

Pure Mint boss resigns BPI committee over Digital Economy Bill [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

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DIGITAL STUFF...

MySpace Music launches in the UK - not as shit as you'd think [CMU Daily 03/12/09]

Vevo to launch next week [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

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POP COURTS STUFF...

More on the latest Death Row lawsuit [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

A second lawsuit launched in Death Row fallout [CMU Daily 01/12/09]

No charges likely in Jacko death investigation until new year [CMU Daily 03/12/09]

Pumpkins settle [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

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GENERAL MUSIC STUFF

Robbie Williams not engaged [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

Westlife boy regrets 2004 Sinatra album [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

Alanis on dope [CMU Daily 01/12/09]

Rick relishes in slow Fiddy sales [CMU Daily 01/12/09]

Robbie doing well in Europe, Boyle still big in America [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

Walsh to manage Jedward [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

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MEDIA STUFF...

Radio needs to regroup to fight new on-demand streaming competitors [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

New weekly freesheet for London [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

INM shareholders back Indy saving restructure [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

Telegraph to invest fifty million in digital [CMU Daily 30/11/09]

ABC to tighten live show rules after Lambert [CMU Daily 02/12/09]

Record complaints for OfCom [CMU Daily 02/12/09]

Murdoch talks up subscription websites some more [CMU Daily 02/12/09]

DAB radio sales pass 10 million - good news or bad? [CMU Daily 02/12/09]

X-Factor: Cash mountains and Vegas ambitions [CMU Daily 03/12/09]

Vivendi sells its 20% stake in NBC Universal [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

More Glambert telly cancellations post AMAs [CMU Daily 04/12/09]

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FESTIVAL STUFF...

Eno to guest direct Brighton Festival 2010 [ThreeWeeks News-Blog 30/11/09]