After writing about how print-digital integration was absolutely the wrong response to digital disruption, I’ve been going back to more of the ideas of Clay Christensen and Clark Gilbert on how the news industry should respond to disruption. I would strongly encourage you to take an hour and a half of your time and watch Clark Gilbert speak at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation. I had read his ideas, but he’s even more forceful and compelling in person (or via video).
http://vimeo.com/65150395
Clark Gilbert, Deseret News – April 25, 2013 from Nieman Foundation on Vimeo.
He quotes the president of an online newspaper division:
Overall, the newspaper industry’s involvement in the internet has been one where it had a lot to lose and it’s been trying not to lose it, as opposed to starting from scratch and having a lot to win.
Gilbert has created a disruptive division that is all about winning digital opportunities. About 47 minutes in, he lays out five business model ideas that are changing the news industry and are helping his digital division grow at 40 percent year-over-year.
- Digital revenue should a third of your business in 2012 and half of your business by 2015
- A digital buyer needs a digital seller
- New channels are the difference between Transformation A and Transformation B
- Digital marketplaces (Not Digital Publishing) will win
- Dual transformation requires new organisation
And he says that number 2 is non-negotiable, and watch the video at 51 minutes to see why Gilbert is even more adamant about that now. Your jaw will drop. Seriously, this is worth your time.
They have four digital advertising channels:
- Companies that want a legacy-digital bundle
- Large local digital only
- Small local digital only
- National advertisers that do a significant amount of targeting and re-targeting.
He said that he recently noticed that the legacy-digital bundle sales had plateaued, but one of his other channels (he didn’t say which one) is growing by 70 percent year-over-year, which is just one reason why they have 40 percent year-over-year digital revenue growth.
Number four will interest everyone who is in local media. He says that digital marketplaces are winning local.
Gilbert makes an even more forceful case than he did in Austin where I saw him in April that integration, especially on the business side, was absolutely the wrong idea. When the Washington Post integrated its print and digital, digital revenue growth stopped. When the Dallas Morning news integrated print and digital, digital revenue growth stopped, Gilbert said.
Contrast that with Gilbert’s company. In 2009, legacy revenue accounted for 90 percent of the business and digital came only from 10 percent. In 2012, he said that legacy revenue channels would account for only 33 percent of overall revenue. Digital revenue is now bigger than revenue at their TV station and their radio station, and it will soon pass print.
I’ll just finish with this comment from Gilbert:
News is not a business model. It’s a public good.
However, you can build a business around the brand that you create with this public good.
Fellow journalists, you should be fighting for this kind of thinking because Gilbert plows back a third of all the profit from the digital division to fund the newsroom.