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KPMG reports that that consumers are "spending less on traditional and digital media than six months ago, but consuming more." The six-monthly KPMG Media and Entertainment Barometer released yesterday shows that average spend per UK consumer on traditional media fell from "from £9.19 in September 2009 to £7.46 in March 2010 and spend on digital media also fell (from £1.99 to £0.98)."
The Chartered Institute of Public Relation’s announced today that it has brought together some of the UK’s most eminent social media thinkers “to provide input into the Institute’s policy guidance, education and training.” Led by CIPR Board Member and Stainforth MD Rob Brown the advisory board is charged with looking at the impact of social media on “online reputation developments, convergence in marketing communications and best practice social media measurement.”
Last week Google decided to launch a salvo against the news industry by attacking plans by some outlets to introduce paywalls. Armed with an array of statistics Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian highlighted how “newspapers have never made much money from news” and that they could “save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet.” In effect, what Varian was saying is that print is dead, bin the paper and move all your content online. Simple. But is he right and would such a strategy save the news and publishing industries?
Senior media and communications executives met in London this week for the 2010 FT Digital Media and Broadcast conference (#ftmedia10). At the heart of the debate were the questions of how the sectors were emerging from the global recession and the impact of online and social media on the creative industry and its revenues. WPP Group Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell launched the opening salvo by questioning companies that, from an advertising perspective, were being over-optimistic about social media. Sir Martin described social media as a phenomenon that was “personal” and therefore “not suited to being invaded by adverts.” He was right. This phenomenon is personal and it works because it’s based on conversational marketing that’s more suited to public relations than advertising.
We all know how the downturn in advertising spend has affected the press and publishing industries. Newsrooms appear to have been decimated as publishers across all sectors laid journalists out to pasture. In far too much haste commentators wasted no time in penning the obligatory obituary for their own industry. But how wrong they appeared to have been. If there was one thing that came from last week’s news:rewired conference at London’s City University it was that journalism is rediscovering itself and using technology and it’s audience to do an even better job.
The BBC’s User-Generated-Content (UGC) unit will be celebrating its fifth birthday this summer. Since it was set up in 2005, the unit has quietly been transforming how the BBC gathers and reports news. The unit is now a hub of 23 journalists that sift through stories, pictures and videos sent in by people who either have a story to tell or find themselves at the centre of a newsworthy event.
A lot of rumours are floating around at the moment about how publishing companies are developing digital platforms for the print offerings.
Nic Newman summed up the impact that social media is having on journalism when he said that based on volume and time spent on site, “Facebook was six times bigger than CNN.” People today spend more time on social networking sites than on news sites, with industry commentators citing this to highlight the reason for the supposed death of news and quality journalism.
The BBC launched its much-anticipated ‘Democracy Live’ online service on Friday. Offering ‘live and video on demand video coverage of the UK’s national political institutions and the European Parliament’, the site brings politics to the public. Giving people insight into government and how our elected representatives and institutions work.
Remember when iTunes was released way back in January 2001? Really, do you remember? At it’s launch Steve Jobs was confident. He knew what he was giving us and how it might transform our music listening and buying habits. At the unveiling at Macworld Expo Jobs said: “iTunes is miles ahead of every other jukebox application, and we hope its dramatically simpler user interface will bring even more people into the digital music revolution.” With that straight to the point statement the landscape for the music industry and other associated creative industries changed.