Newspapers need new model to align with media consumption habit

There is consensus among media analysts that traditional media that rely largely on event news coverage in the face of digital technology is likely to face further readership decline with its consequences on revenue.

This is evident as the new technology has not only seen the rise in citizen journalism, the concept of public participation in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing, and disseminating news and information, but the online media have been quick in event breaking news. This means that literally they have become source of first-hand news thereby relegating the traditional media copies.

Though traditional media websites remain credible source of confirming some of the stories on social media, but media copies may increasingly become extraneous and belated if they continue to report yesterday’s story today in the newspapers.

It is said therefore that with the rise of new media, traditional media will however continue to retain their power and influence if they adopt convergence for news but more importantly concentrate on investigative and researched stories for the hard copies of newspapers while incorporating the developed and regular event stories in the online media websites.

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Looking at the growing online media platforms in a chat with BusinessDay recently, Abasiama Idaresit, CEO, Wild Fusion, a digital marketing agency, believes that while online platforms grows, traditional media should continue to innovate to align with media consumption habit of its audience.

Idaresit, who believes that access to technology and the need for communication and information are the primary drivers of proliferation of online media platforms, however, says that providing relevant content that resonates with the audience attract and retain users whether websites or hard copies and this in turn attracts advertisers looking to reach users. “Content is important and should be the focus,” he says.

According to him, the print industry will continue to survive by innovating and ensuring that technology adoption is part of its growth strategy, as technology in today’s world is here to stay.

Fiyin Williams, a former manager with Sponge West Africa, a digital marketing platform, says the proliferation of online media platforms will give rise to innovative thinking.

“For newspapers to stay afloat, publishers and print media owners will have to change their business model and adapt to market realities. They will have to invest more in their online media channel and be more target specific for their offline media,” she says.

In a report in Publishing Executive, an online publication, Thaddeus B. Kubis, an integrated marketing, media convergence and experiential marketing evangelist, says the newspaper/magazine industry reacted poorly to the ‘predicted future.’

“Rather then embrace the future, I think many newspaper and media groups expected the new technology to be a temporary inconvenience and that things would soon go back to the past (slightly changed) model. Technology was offering change, but the change in consumer and advertisers perception, the change in the use of news and how valued news would be viewed by the consumer and the advertiser, was also part of the convergence. Industry did not see this change and they should have or at least they should have started to ask questions and define their path to growth,” he says.

He believes that in the next 10 years “you will see newspapers and magazines being reborn as a hybrid of real news, editorial, feature-based stories and a combination of all these, offered across all media based on the needs of the consumer. The convergence of media and the tools or technology of media are here to stay and will continue to change in new, yet unseen ways.”

Daniel Obi