The CEO & Executive Director of the International News Media Association, Earl Wilkinson, kicks off The 2018 ROUNDTABLE with his thoughts on the strategic state of news media worldwide.
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Finding New Value in the Age of Transformation: Earl Wilkinson
1. News Media Outlook
Finding New Value In the Age of Transformation
Earl J. Wilkinson
Executive Director and CEO
International News Media Association (INMA)
@earljwilkinson
3. My focus in past 12 months
Study tours in Scandinavia, Silicon Valley, Washington,
London, New Delhi
37-day tour of publishers in South Pacific,
Latin America, Europe
Extreme focus on emergence of media subscriptions
and new economics of content
4. Today’s presentation
The state of media transformation
The emerging strategy foundations
The re(emerging) value propositions for media brands
The new economics of content
Newsrooms: threats and opportunities
Conclusions
6. “Difficult to re-mound a
legacy company”
Not everyone can be New York
Times or needs to be
High time publishers realised they
are in FMCG business
Faster they adopt those models
the better
7. Take costs out of the legacy (print) business
Optimise digital products
Business model and revenue diversification
Adjust personnel to new skill sets needed
Adjust workplace to new personnel, prospective personnel
Adjust expectations to new reality: 5%-10% margin business
6 transformations in
1 decade (at least)
8. Organisational obsession
Develop leadership skills for next generation
Communicate obsessively
Eliminate noise: objectives, distractions, people
Manage up: eliminate gaps between ownership and management
Move beyond “short-term-ism”
Transformation 7.0
10. Culture advice for
2018-19
Put as much emphasis on transforming the
organisation as the product
Manage transformation burnout and “tech debt”
De-sensitise the organisation to exits
Reduce complexity
12. Repeated disconnect: stories this week, on the road,
every day
Yes, you have to manage down (staff)
You also need to spend as much time managing up
(ownership)
Ownership and
management
13. Define what has value to
shareholders and owners
Profitability
Journalism
Gateway to new businesses
Family position in society
A toy
15. Transient strategies
“Last man standing” strategy is transient
“Extend the runway” strategy is transient
At some point, you will have to turn to the
market and attack the value line
Market strategies vs. investment strategies
16. We need stability
Pick a strategy and stick with it
We need stable managements
We need stable strategies
We need more intense focus on
executing and iterating
17. Narrow your focus
Quit trying to be all things to all people:
Mission
Editorial coverage
Market strategy
Embracing all “bright shiny objects” that come along
Biggest thing you can do to “save journalism” is match its
tenets with what your brand really stands for
“Doing fewer things better”
18. Bar for ideation needs to be lowered
Experiment, iterate, move on
Top-down signals (ownership + management)
Can’t punish experimentation
Need to build room to try
No room for Bob Woodward journalism? Eliminate journalism resources nobody reads!
“Getting away from sure bets”
19. Attack above the value line
Balance the “necessary” below this line
vs. attacking “opportunities” above this line:
Revenue vs. expenses
Journalism mission vs. engagement
Scale on the back end vs. sales +
attention + engagement on the front end
20. Build media strategy on
foundations that won’t change
Audiences
Brands
Culture
Data
21. Value creation: inside or
outside P&L?
Strategy choice for media: Profitability via multi-media model vs. accepting
low-margin media business as incubator of bigger initiatives
Outliers:
Stuff (Fairfax New Zealand), no paywall, national scale audience for new
initiatives like selling fiber optics in homes and local community site
Fairfax Australia spun off Domain real estate vertical, which represented
75% of market cap in late 2017
Schibsted’s Blocket classified advertising sight (long-term)
23. Value proposition
Psssttt: What does any of this have to do with <digital subscriptions> <mobile> <print> <format change>?
Content
Community
Convenience
Cause
24. Value proposition
Psssttt: What does any of this have to do with <digital subscriptions> <mobile> <print> <format change>?
Content (50%)
Community (20%)
Convenience (20%)
Cause (10%)
25. Value proposition
Psssttt: What does any of this have to do with <digital subscriptions> <mobile> <print> <format change>?
Content (50%)
Community (20%)
Convenience (20%)
Cause (10%)
Rational
Emotional
27. Based on latest publicly available data, INMA notes and estimates
What is success?
28. Meter
High volume of content
High volume of trigger
content (quality?)
Low/medium
newsroom ask
Freemium
Low/medium-volume
content
Lower volume of
trigger content
Data fuels newsroom
decision-making
Hard
Brand has extreme
community connection
Paywall
types
Hybrid
Meter + freemium
Example: 8-article
monthly meter +
locking 40% of articles
Dynamic
Personalisation
Reader behaviour/
willing to pay
30. Virtually every publisher in world has incredible upside
There is a digital subscription ceiling coming for core product
Beyond this we must attack niches and market opportunities
Reader revenue: possibilities
and ceilings
32. Fear advertising will get in the way of our “straight shot”
to optimising the UX of digital subscriptions
Need total creativity to engage and retain
Don’t take your eye off the ball
This is what happened to print over the years, and we
need to guard against it in digital
Subscriptions: don’t get
distracted
34. Where data sits in
newsrooms
Data-driven vs. data-informed
Gannett, Schibsted data-driven
Financial Times data-informed
Data: newsrooms repositioned
35. We must be willing to listen closely to what
readers tell us
Not everyone can pull off high-brow journalism
It is not about “better” so much as it’s about
“different” and “unique”
Authentic voice more important amid
information noise
Not all journalism
created equally
36. “It’s on us”
Don’t shout louder, report smarter (be smarter)
Media can’t be an element in the political process
Stop, breathe, slow down: we are held to higher standard
When <Trump> is gone, what market do you own?
What market are you perceived to own?
How to manage perceptions of your news brand
Right vs. wrong? Left vs. right? Popular vs. quality? Pro vs. con?
Without credibility, news brands have no future as economics tighten
38. Over-arching themes
Focus on a growth mission
Total-company approach
Deeper audience knowledge
Culture change
Membership mindset
Key lessons
Have confidence in pricing
Have confidence in paywall
settings
Set data foundations first
Just ask people to pay
Conclusions from London
Subscriptions Summit
40. Culture > strategy > execution > innovation
Transformation today about the organisation
Plug the gap between ownership and management (create stability)
Narrow your focus (cut) to create space to experiment more
Digital subscriptions beyond core content: build the stack
Newsroom cultures will either make us or break us
“It’s on us” to be on the right side of post-Trump era
Conclusions
41. Be vigilant: strive to get better, democratize access to ideas
Don’t reinvent the wheel: use associations, NDAs, networks
Commit to constant training and re-training
Communicate, communicate, communicate
Parting words
42. News Media Outlook
Finding New Value In the Age of Transformation
Earl J. Wilkinson
Executive Director and CEO
International News Media Association (INMA)
@earljwilkinson