These are slides for a discussion about the news business with a class at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

1. Disruption & Opportunity
in the News Business
Steve Buttry
Industrial College of the Armed Forces
April 9, 2012

2. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• jxpaton.wordpress.com
• stephenbuttry@gmail.com

3. Your media use
• Mobile (tablet, phone)
• Computer (laptop, notebook, desktop)
• Broadcast (TV, radio)
• Print
(newspaper, magazine, book, newsletter)

4. In past 6 years
• Lost a lifetime’s growth in print ads
• Newspapers’ print advertising fell from
$47.4M (2005) to $20.7M (2011)
• Inflation-adjusted decline: 62%
• Fell to 1983 level in raw dollars
• 1954 level adjusted for inflation

5. This change is tectonic, not cyclical

7. Clay Shirky:
“Nothing will work,
but everything might.”

9. Matt Welch:
“Never has there been more journalism
produced or consumed, never has it been
easier to find or create or curate news
items, and yet this moment is being
portrayed by self-interested insiders as a
tale of decline and despair.”

11. John Paton:
“You don’t tinker or tweak a
broken model. You start again
anew.”

12. Digital First principles
• Digital First & print last
• Put the digital people in charge
• Engage the community
• Core competencies: Local content & local
sales
• If it’s not core: reduce it, stop it, sell it or
outsource it

13. Foundation to build on:
• Strong brands
• Local content
• Local sales force
• Journalistic integrity

14. Engagement = value
• Computers & archives for
community use
• Open news meetings
• Blog network
• Classes
• Digital audience 5x print
• From loss to profit

17. Jim Brady:
“There's no silver bullet.
There's just shrapnel.”

19. Why “give it away”?
• Wall Street Journal, Arkansas Democrat-
Gazette have longtime paywalls
• NY Times introduced “meter” last year
• LA Times, Gannett adopting paywalls
• “Gate” or “meter” allows some free
visits, doesn’t count social or search

20. Why “give it away”?
• We never charged for content
• If paywalls “work,” benefit is marginal
• You need to spend that money & energy
developing a model for the future
• Paywalls attempt to protect a failing
model
• Only newspapers are trying paywalls

21. John Paton:
“’You’re gonna miss us when we’re
gone’ is not much of a business
model.”

22. Paid content opportunities?
• Premium content (specialized)
• Unique, high-value content
• Membership (get more than content for
your payment)
• Mobile, tablet subscriptions
• Even if people will pay, can you make
more money w/ larger free audience?

24. Mobile Opportunity
• 83% of U.S. adults have cellphones
• 57% have smartphones
• 28% have media tablet
• 28% considering tablet purchase in next
6 months
Source: Reynolds Journalism Institute 2012 study

25. Mobile-first strategy
• Text alerts
• Email
• Applications (phones & tablets)
• Social media (tweets, check-ins, tips)
• Location-based news, info & commerce
• Easy-to-use mobile websites
• Device-flexible (not device-agnostic)
• Games (phones, iPads great for games)

27. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• jxpaton.wordpress.com
• stephenbuttry@gmail.com