The media industry: a palpable air of uncertainty

Posté le 20 avr. 2015

 
New York Times CEO Mark Thompson declared for his company and its competitors that, “the battle will be won on the smartphone.” To that end, the Times launched an $8-a-month mobile app called NYT Now. However, Thompson admitted, “we’ve not sold as many subscriptions as we would have liked.” Traditional media groups are suffering and looking for a strategy to resist. Going digital is mandatory, but to survive, media companies need to personalize their service like Netflix or Amazon. The BBC, the world’s biggest and oldest public broadcasting company, has the ambition to become a technology giant, an internet-first pioneer, marking a return to a corporation keen to expand into new services and catch up with rivals offering personalized options. According to Deloitte media predictions for 2015, the millennial generation in the US and Canada will spend over $ 62 billion on media content, equal to $ 750 per year.

The biggest media expenditure will be pay-TV, followed by music, computer games, books and finally newspapers. Despite these figures, print is still alive and book sales dominate, even in markets with strong digital device penetration. Readers like to collect, they like the smell of books and they want a full bookshelf. But the future of book retailing seems complicated. Brick-and-mortar booksellers do not consider the resilience of the print industry as a good sign, yet online sales of physical books remain strong. And finally, the raging debate on Facebook’sintention to host contents from New York Times and BuzzFeed, a formidable distribution vehicle for publishing groups, which will load extremely quickly, particularly on mobile devices. How, therefore, is the media industry these days? Confused and seeking for new identity, and a profitable business model.

R. V. 

This article is part of a series of articles : "Where does innovation come from? 6 advices to help your organization*

Find all the 6 advices :

Advice 1: Software and hardware: An inevitable convergence for disruption

Advice 2: No choice, but to digitalize

Advice 3: Leverage the telecom pressure

Advice 4: Get ready for the Green wave!

Advice 5: Let the lifesciences transformation to the new age begin!

Advice 6: The media new era