Until We Meet Again

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This is my last blog as a student of JRN 301 at Stony Brook University. It’s been exciting experience writing this blog. It was also an experiment, playing with less than traditional forms of news writing. There was a certain feeling of freedom that I haven’t had while writing in any of my other classes. I’ve gained a tremendous respect for successful bloggers who provide educated opinions.

Also, there was a high learning curve for me. For example, learning more about television, then I ever wanted to know. The technological terms that came with all of this knowledge was somewhat overwhelming.

Great newspapers have folded and made some journalists pessimistic about our future. But, I look forward to being a part of the coming changes in journalism. In just a few months so much has changed. In my opinion the industry seems to be moving forward. From what my class has seen and studied during this semester, the only thing I can predict is that the opportunities are endless. But this isn’t goodbye. This more like see you later. What follows here is just one example. I love the premise of the Times Wire.

The New York Times unveiled Times Wire. The new site will offer blurbs and more about breaking news. Viewers can customize their news or read section by section. It links to blogs and updates every minute. Also on Monday it launched the new look of the TimesReader, a subscription based e-paper, now more closely resembles the paper version of the New York Times.

Until we meet again,
Rachelle S. Johnson

A Woman’s Point of View

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It began as a blog on Slate.com in October 2007 about politics, sex and culture. A few women blogging about popular topics like Sarah Palin’s run for vice president and Elliot Spitzer’s resignation after soliciting prostitutes. More started to visit the site. It was a great time to be a blogger.  The name of the group blog XX Factor, referred to the pair of x chromosomes of females. According to the New York Times “it was consistently ranked number one on Slate.coms site.

Slate now says the group blog had a million visitors.  The popular site has found a particular niche audience.  Hence the proposal from a few of its female bloggers to turn the blogs into a full- fledged site. Three of the bloggers are now co-editors.  It’s refreshing to know that 40% of the sites audience is male. I truly believe that journalists and newspaper publishers will survive only if they provide quality for a niche audience.  That is what the internet site Double X has done successfully.

PBS Shakes Things Up

Image from NYTimes.com

According to a New York Times article yesterday, PBS’ The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer is adjusting to changes in the industry by bridging the digital divide The show has been on the air since 1975 under the name of The MacNeil /Lehrer Report. There are two major changes. There will be two anchors and the name of the show will change to the PBS NewsHour. The changes come as a result of research done last year and will be unveiled today at a meeting in Baltimore.

The program will not lay off workers and is actually looking for a new correspondent, one that can navigate between both the online world and television. The program receives $24 million in donations annually. With 500,000 unique visitors to its site, the broadcast has not been able to push viewers to the site. If The News Hour can get viewers to use the site as well, this would allow the show to increase advertisers and advertising rates. While the show ranks behind the number one, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams its numbers remain steady at 1.2 million. If they could move loyal viewers onto the site as well it could solve the advertising problem that most other television shows have.

There are other changes in the works as well. The PBS NewsHour is also thinking of partnering with public radio and creating a single web site with news aggregated from other PBS programs. Their goal is to create a more individualized experience. In April, chief executive officer of content, John Boland wrote in an internal email message “ We can hang together or hang separately. While our highly decentralized structure may make perfect sense to us, it is incomprehensible to our audiences and is contributing to fragmentation.” Jim Lehrer also says given the current state of newspapers and journalism, journalists have to do more.

I am anxious to see if the changes will work. It’s another example of how the rules have changed in the journalism industry.

“Dreaming of a Paperless Society”

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Amazon introduced a larger version of the Kindle, called the Kindle DX, the electronic book reader. Many knew that you could read books with the original, but now you can read newspapers and other documents with the updated version. Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, said the new Kindle was a step in the direction of a long-dreamed-of “paperless society.”

The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Washington Post will offer long time subscribers a reduced price on the Kindle DX for those who live in areas where the papers are not available. Speaking of prices, the new larger Kindle will cost buyers $489. That’s without the discount.

I don’t understand how the three newspapers will make enough money off the deal.  The Kindle DX will not carry advertisements. I wonder how much profit they will realize off this venture. It’s a huge drawback and a step backwards for the business model for newspapers.  They won’t have the cost of print, but Amazon gets 70 percent of the take.

The three newspapers seem to assume those who can’t get the paper in their area also don’t have the Internet. McGraw-Hill is also negotiating with Amazon to carry textbooks through the Kindle DX. Would they buy the larger more expensive Kindle, because you can also read books? That’s how they may be able to get more people to buy another device.  Of course that could mean a lot less books, newspapers etc. 

I know environmentalists are very happy.

The Future for Newspapers

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Our journalism class at Stony Brook University was assigned the task of predicting of what we thought the future of newspapers, the future of journalism and a successful business model.

There were some great ideas. One of my peers predicted that college students were not the ones to come up with the successful model, that it would be kids more youthful than ourselves.

I predicted that newspapers would still exist, but only those who provide quality reporting to an established audience. Newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times will be around as well as Time Magazine and the Economist which has been able to raise subscription prices to $100 a year and newstand prices to $6.99 per issue successfully.

I predicted that a startup could publish almost entirely on the internet, could create a classified section and charge very little, similar to craigs list. The difference is, customers could pay for an exclusive area where they could communicate with those who answered their ad. This, I thought would allow the company to regain some of the advertising dollars lost to online sites such as craig’s list and monster.com. I would offer advertisers unique visitors as well, enabling me to charge a premium for advertising.

My startup would focus on local news. It would cover all of Long Island. Newsday watchout! A 24 hour news operation.

Investigative reporting, expensive to publications would be funded by crowd funding. A reporter would pitch their idea for the investigative story to our audience by placing a video on th site. Viewers would donate, spotus does this currently.

I would partner with local television stations for national and international stories. The video report would appear next to a paragraph that gave you a summary of the story, much the same way the NPR does with their mobile alerts. After reading 1 paragraph the reader could click on “more” to read the rest of the article, “blog” to continue on to the reporters blog about the article and “related stories”.

But my biggest risk, was my plan to offer news on CD. “Who would want all those CD”s in their house,” one of my classmates asked. I answered, “That would be based on how you ordered and people have CD’s in their homes now.” My thinking is, that those who needed to have something tangible would find it easier to pop in a CD of news into their laptops. But maybe this would be more popular for older viewers, or maybe not. But I do believe there are people who are connected to the action of going outside and picking up a newspaper every morning. Maybe they are older than 49 years old.

And then there was the toughest question of all. “Where are you getting the money from?” “Venture capitalists and the Knight Foundation,” I answered confidently.

Are crawls crowding the territory?

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According to a New York Times article, viewers tend to stay tuned to cable network shows more during commercials if there is a crawl- the information that runs at the bottom of the screen. You would think advertisers would object to crawls, thinking the crawl would distract from their commercial. But it seems to be a winning situation for advertisers. In addition advertisers are saving money. It amounts to a few thousand dollars but with advertisers increasingly struggling to find their audience, cutting costs by a few thousand dollars can make a difference.

My journalism class discusssed the article and my professor, Barbara Selvin mentioned watching a BBC show with a crawl related to the show. If crawls can help advertisers retain viewers and save money, maybe there should be more of them. I know the business model for newspapers isn’t working but the business model for television is not too far behind.

Maybe American television should take a hint from the BBC. What if the big three networks used crawls during their prime time shows that added information about the stars of the show or how the show is made, during the commercial. It could be a way for networks to link out, in a way and a way of encouraging viewers to stay tuned.

Now, creating an ad that will have a crawl on the screen can increase the work load for ad creators. In those cases two ads are produced, one for analog, another for digital televison sets. But the extra work should decrease signifigantly by June 12th when everyone should be digital. Between April 12th all full powered television stations will make the switch to digital.

Die Already!

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To Whom It May Concern;

I feel like a predator waiting for the demise of it’s prey. Our journalism class has blogged about the changes in the publishing industry, i.e. the death of newspapers, since the beggining of the semester. More experienced journalists are also doing the same.

In my opinion, I wish it would die. There, I wrote it. Die already! Then there would be no more repetetive articles, no more wise cracks from broadcast journalist, (television ad revenue is also declining) and no more death of newspaper blogging. I apologize to all who are profiting from it’s impending demise, but enough already. The bad news far outweighs the good. Furthermore, it’s not news anymore.

And therein lies the problem or at least part of the problem. Only a few news organizations actually gather news, the rest distribute it, then death of newspaper bloggers regurgitate it and add preservatives.

Would some well respected publication or journalist pronounce the death, so the industry can move on?

Sincerely,
A death of newspapers blogger

Can the “Geritol Generation” help?

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In my journalism classes we learn that advertisers are after a young audience, because we are not loyal to any brand; therefore, more apt to try theirs. According to advertisers, we are open to trying new products while the more mature audience has a tendency to stick with a product and are more reluctant to change, when they find a product or service they like. But there are signs that these ideas may change.

The New York Times reports today that the so called “Geritol generation” is proving to be a bastion of hope for advertisers.  Although “18 to 49 is going to remain the predominant buying demographic,” said Andy Donchin, director for media investment at Carat in New York, “this country is aging, and the boomers are an attractive demographic.”

To the surprise of ebeanstalk.com’s owners, an online seller of children’s learning toys; grandparents are nearly half of the company’s customers.   Other companies are catching on. Chrysler, Kraft Foods, L’Oreal, Procter & Gamble and Target are among them.

Advertisers waxing interest in the older market is helping at least one of the networks.  CBS‘ “CSI” and “60 minutes” are ranked highest in network ratings.  The magazine industry has been suffering for quite some time, but magazines geared towards the “Geritol generation” are seeing smaller losses.

I know advertisers new appreciation of the more mature may be in part due to secular changes in the media industry as a whole.  But, I am hoping this is the beginning of another secular change, a greater appreciation of the more mature.

For YouTube, Predicted Losses, Classic Television and Micropayments

The Adams Family Theme Song
YouTube announced that it has signed a deal that will bring televsion episodes and movies to its popular site. Google, the owner of YouTube, inked the deal with Sony, Lionsgate and MGM. They also announced that they may introduce a payment system such as micropayments in the future. This announcement comes as Credit Suisse a financial services company reports that YouTube will loose $470 million in 2009.

To attract advertisers the company is planning to add more professionally produced videos along with ads before and after videos. In other words removing some of the things that I like most about YouTube, the creativity of the original content without the intrusion of being forced to watch an ad.

I wonder how Google intends to successfully utilize micropayments, considering that it hasn’t worked. Are they headed in the wrong direction?

I must admit that I love old episodes of The Adams Family, just one the classic shows YouTube plans to add. But, Hulu.com already carries the popular ’60′s television show. It also plans to air episodes of the mystery Harper’s Island from CBS. I’m not sure how that will fair on YouTube. Maybe they’re banking on Harper’s Island doing as well as Lost has on the Internet, but Harper’s Island is no Lost, nor does the new show have the loyal followers.According to Nielsen, Lost ranks highest on the Internet, beating out all other television episodes with a little over 1.4 million viewers.

I’m not sure how the YouTube community will react to the coming changes. I believe they will resist any form of payment system as well as the intrusion of ads, but the classic televsion episodes that may be a hit.

Ted Turner is Going Down

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According to CNN, Ashton Kutcher became the first person to have a million followers on Twitter. “That Ted Turner thing is going down,” the popular young actor exclaimed via ustream.tv, just after he surpassed CNN in followers. He says he sees the milestone as a movement of the people.

Let me explain, the two charismatic celebrities made a wager. The first one to get a million followers on Twitter would donate 10,000 anti-malaria bednets. Turner congratulated Kutcher as well as all the followers who helped. Then he encouraged Kutcher’s followers to join Nothing But Nets and double their pledge. Nothing But Nets is a part of the United Nations Foundations created by Ted Turner. The bet helped gain awareness for World Malaria day on April 25th.

Nothing But Nets is a part of The United Nations Foundation founded by Ted Turner. What’s next for the social networking site-OPRAH! Tweet away.