I presented this at a workshop at Rhodes University, Grahamstown in South Africa in August 2016. The goal was to help traditional media companies re-think the mass media model and consider new options in the search for sustainable revenue.

1. Alan Soon
Founder & CEO
alansoon@thesplicenewsroom.com
@alansoon
@splicenewsroom
OSF x Highway Africa
Putting the audience at the centre –
new forms of storytelling, distribution
and revenue

2. Alan Soon & The Splice Newsroom.
• Newsroom strategy and operations consultant
• Specialist in digital transformation and change management
• Career journalist
• Radio, TV, newswires, magazines, online
• ONA Singapore co-founder
• Building Rockstart’s tech startup program in Singapore

3. Expand your mind, change your world.
Gets you talking.
Our lives, our paper.
The paper for the people.
The world’s greatest newspaper.
All the news that’s fit to print.
When The Times speaks, the World listens.
Sunday isn't Sunday without the Sunday Times.
Bild. Read the world's fastest newspaper.
Making twice the noise.
Simpler. Better. Smarter.
Your right to know.
It's thinking time.
We are local news.Our slogans.

4. But why do people
read/watch/listen to you?

5. What do people need that only
you can provide?

6. Would people notice if you
weren’t around tomorrow?

7. So what do you know
about your audience?

8. "We are coming at last to the
end of the Gutenberg Age."
— Jeff Jarvis, Director of the
Tow-Knight Center for
Entrepreneurial Journalism

9. We’re in the
age of personalized media,
not mass media.

10. How the mass media business model works
1. Create as much content as possible.
2. Sell as many as ads as possible.

11. Why are we so obsessed
about reach?

12. Here’s the problem:
Scarcity no longer exists in media.
1. Content is commoditized. Plenty to read.
2. Ad delivery is commoditized. Plenty to show.
Your audience is spending less time on news
content.

13. “The scarcest resource of
the 21st century is human
attention.”
— Les Hinton
Former publisher of WSJ

14. The average attention span today is 8
seconds (a 33% decline since 2000)
(Btw, a goldfish has 9 seconds of
attention)
17% of page views last less than 4
seconds
49% of people read less than 111
words on a web page

15. How far can we push this?
Source: kissmetrics.com

16. We’re in peak content.
Journalists are forced to
keep churning more stories
— even though there aren’t
enough eyeballs, time or
ad revenues to go around.

17. We’re killing our users.
“8 things you should never feed to…”
“You wouldn’t believe what happened when…”
“I did this… and this amazing stuff
happened…”

18. As journalists, we got into this
business to inform and educate
society.

19. Instead, we
gave them this.

20. The mass
digital media
market is
starting to
unwind.

22. It’s not about the next big thing.
Tablets, watches, glasses, bots,
live videos, drones, VR.
None of these will save the news
business.

23. It requires a re-invention of
the way we think about
journalism.
Choose value over volume.

24. Start thinking of users as
humans. Understand the
people behind the numbers.

25. The answers aren’t going to
come from the industry.
So let’s learn from another.

26. 1. Create a customer experience map: Identify customer touch points with your product/service.
2. Identify customer outcomes: Using your customer experience map, outline what the customer
wants to accomplish at each touch point by customer segment.
3. Determine the current state: Conduct customer research to validate your findings and uncover
unmet customer needs.
4. Prioritize: Find the areas on which to focus.
5. Test: Try your new innovations in a controlled setting.
6. Implement: Put your new innovations into practice more wide
7. Measure and adjust: Always be flexible to make adjustments.
7-step methodology of innovation

27. Hotels.

28. Why hotels?
• Creating products and services that people
actually want to pay for
• Investing in behavioral analytics to understand
what people want
• Obsessed about the user’s experience

33. Some of the things they
share in common:
• Prioritizing bars and social spaces for
interactions
• Free, fast internet
• Comfortable common spaces for work

34. How are you
…rewarding your users?
…building loyalty?
…creating new experiences?

38. Re-defining journalism

39. Media was never meant to reach the
most number of people.
We were meant to reach the right
people and help them.
Right people, right information, right
time, right place, right monetization.

40. We are in a golden age of media.
For the first time, we have everything you
need to create content in your hands.
We have data to know what people want…
how to get it to them…
on whatever platform they’re on.
And yet media companies are struggling.

41. “If you’re not an entrepreneur
in journalism these days, you
should get out of journalism.”
— Kara Swisher
Founder, Recode

42. It’s time we asked:
What is the role of journalism today?

43. Alternate business models
1. Subscription + Community
2. Reviews + e-Commerce
3. Data + APIs
4. Events
5. Newsletters

44. 1. Subscription + Community:
The Information
• Started by Jessica Lessin, ex-WSJ
reporter
• Covers tech news in Silicon Valley
• Primary distribution: Email newsletters
• Targets CEOs, analysts, investors
• Community building through Slack
• Conference calls on major events
• International trips
• Subscriber conferences

45. 1. Subscription + Community:
The Athletic
• Paid local sports site for die-hard fans
• Hires journos from ESPN
• No ads
• $7 a month
• 80% of readers view every article
produced
• Average time spent: 90 mins a week
• Clean design focus

46. 2. Reviews + e-Commerce:
The Wirecutter
• Started by Brian Lam, ex-Gizmodo
and Wired
• Tech review site
• Known for rigorous testing of
gadgets
• Makes money when people order
products from Amazon via the affiliate
links on the site

47. 3. Data + APIs:
Crunchbase
• Source of company,
investment, and industry data
• Updates delivered daily
• $5,000 a month for
commercial access

48. 4. Events:
The Economist
• Brings together industry
leaders, newsmakers, media
• Delivers insights with high-
profile speakers
• Standard rate US$1,800

49. 5. Email newsletters:
Quartz Daily Briefing
• Free service
• Delivered every morning
• Essential reading
• Links back to Quartz
• Runs sponsored content

50. 5. Email newsletters:
theSkimm
• 3.5 million subscribers
• 20 staff
• Founded by 2 former NBC
producers
• $8 million Series B funding
with 21st Century Fox

51. thesplicenewsroom.com
@alansoon

52. Alan Soon
alansoon@thesplicenewsroom.com
Alan Soon is Asia's leading specialist on newsroom
operations, digital transformation and the business of
media. He is the Founder & CEO of The Splice
Newsroom, an editorial consultancy that builds,
develops and transforms newsrooms.
For more than 20 years, Alan has worked in radio, TV,
news wires, magazine and online across Asia. He
started out as a reporter and grew into other
operational roles including producer, editor, newsroom
manager and eventually a business leader.
Alan led one of the largest digital news teams in the
industry as Yahoo’s Managing Editor for India and
Southeast Asia. He’s also worked at CNBC and
Bloomberg across Asia.
Alan is a regular speaker at international media
conferences and is a co-founder of the Online News
Association in Singapore.