"And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,
then the piper will lead us to reason"

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Brand suicide in the media industry

Just two days after my last post on the mainstream media rushing to publish articles and ignoring content quality, here came this example from two publications that I'd say are fairly respectable.

Two news reports, on the same day, on the same topic, but in direct contradiction of each other. Very obviously, one of them is wrong. Now my intent is not to compare these two publications, but to show that even respectable publications are not beyond putting 'time to market' over 'content quality'.
Here's publication #1: This headline states that a certain set of 189 documents are not available, as per the Centre.

Note the date: August 27, 2013

Here's publication #2: This headline states that 189 documents are available, as per the Centre.

Note the date: August 27, 2013

Advertising Income: Margins or Volumes?
I know from anecdotal evidence that regular readers are worth more (on a per reader basis) to a media brand since publishers can command higher advertising rates because their advertisers know precisely who'll view their ads. One-time visitors redirected to the news-site from Google or Twitter might not be the targets their advertisers want, so publishers have to work with significantly lower rates. Put simply, regular readers offer a better margin (but lower volumes) to a publisher, and one-time readers redirected from the internet offer greater volumes (but lower margins).

A different priority
Seeing blatantly incorrect news articles or half-baked op-ed pieces turns me away from a media brand. One can safely assume that most people behave the same way, and regular readers of a publication prefer quality over a rush job that could do with some editorial inputs. But the fact that more and more media houses are playing fast and loose with content quality and gunning for speed implies that they're aiming at a different customer - one driven to the website from the internet, and putting higher readership over higher advertising rates.

Brand suicide 
The problem is, when the speed of publishing is all you have, you don't have much of a brand. And if you don't have a brand, you don't have much of a business.

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