AR&D Reinventing Local Media

It has been a great year for local Websites, at least visually. For two years now, Terry and I have been calling for local media sites to clean up their acts. Many have done so. The local media sites look less like a jumble of Legos and more like a consistent, professional display of news and information. Many still have a way to go. Those with the cleanest look have proven that you don’t need a ton of tiles to make money. It’s not the volume of spaces — it’s the quality.

It’s no surprise that a study by the ad company Burst Media finds that people are turned off by cluttered sites. We all know that (even those who have cluttered sites). What the study quantifies nicely is that cluttered sites don’t work at all — not for the advertiser, not for the visitor and not for the publisher. By trying to feed all mouths, everyone goes hungry.

Want a reason to cut back on the number of ads on your site? They kill the site’s effectiveness:

“One out of two (52.4%) respondents has a less favorable opinion of an advertiser when their advertising appears on a web page they perceive as cluttered.”

That’s not much of a pitch, is it? “Advertise on our site, and half the people will like you less!”

75% of those who remain on a site surrounded by clutter (hey, I still need that information, even if I have to dig to get it) aren’t paying attention to the ads. (Add to our pitch “They’ll like you less, but only if they notice you!”)

There’s also very little tolerance for cluttered pages. Almost a third simply leave the page if it’s cluttered. Think of all the work it took to get them there. Now they’re running away, and they’re not recommending you to their friends. (Now our pitch builds: “You don’t have to worry too much about the negative impact of advertising with us, though. Lots of people run away screaming.”)

How do they define clutter? More than half say it’s more than just two ads per page!

I had a playwriting teacher at Trinity College, Arthur Feinsod, who gave me one of the best bits of advice on writing I’d ever heard. Pass it along, if you wish, whenever someone asks you if spelling counts or if design matters.

“Picture you’re in your car and your favorite song comes on the radio. Now imagine there’s static. You may put up with a tiny, tiny bit of static. But if there’s any more static, you will change the channel — even if it’s your favorite song in the world.”

(OK, it was the ‘80s and a) we listened to car radios and b) I fancied myself a playwright. But I think the advice is still good.)

You can bring in money with quality, targeted ads. In 2009, Terry and I are going to be showing clients some great examples of this. We’re already working on some with clients right now. The idea is to identify niches in your community — specific needs, even during troubled economic times — and work within those niches to build sites that benefit everyone. You charge according to the value of the service. And you wipe out the static completely. 

Prediction lists are silly. I like to tell people who ask for my predictions that “The predictions are free, it’s the advice that I charge for.” Why are we so interested in predictions? Who would have predicted what happened in 2008? Most prediction lists are based upon what happened the previous year anyway. It’s like going to the track — people pick horses based upon what the horse did in the previous few races. Not bad, but nobody sees the new, untested horse out of nowhere.

Any why 10, anyway? It’s the industry standard. Do we owe it to David Letterman? A Top Five list looks lazy and a Top Nine list looks incomplete. Top 15 is too many.

So, with that said, in no order, here are my 10 predictions for the media industry in 2009.

1. Local media will start to appear on iPhones and Blackberries as iApps. This will appear like popcorn — one will do it, then a few more, then a ton will follow. But the leader in each market will be the only that gets the space.
2. More newspapers will go online-only. This is a wussy prediction, so let’s jazz it up. At least five medium-major market papers will do this.
3. Ditto, five major magazines.
4. Three television station groups and five newspaper chains will declare Chapter 11.
5. At least one TV station group will declare Chapter 7.
6. One of the networks and one of the cable news channels will combine news operations.
7. 10% of newsgathering will be done by VJs by the end of the year.
8. Google will make a bid for a major newspaper.
9. There will be a breakthrough, profitable online-only “TV” series.
10. The market will recover to 12,000 by Dec. 31, 2009. Oil will be at $100/barrel.
11. The Yankees will spend a fortune and still not win the World Series.

Dang — I ran over and went to 11 anyway. Again — I have no business making these predictions. (Especially #10.) But none of them are outrageous. And if I had made them five years ago, you would have laughed them off. Also, I think it’s splitsville for Brad and Angelina, but I don’t see where that’s especially useful for you.  

You’ve always had to have a “dead trees” edition of a newspaper to win a Pulitzer. If your news was distributed via the Web only, no prize for you. (”Brought down the government, you say? I’m sorry, we didn’t see it in newsprint.”) It was only as of 2006 that you could get a Pulitzer for your online work – and that was only if you were “attached” to a regular newspaper.

Well hand it to the Pulitzers for getting hip with the times. No – you still can’t win a prize for simply doing good journalism. But you can win one if your paper is now “Web-only.”

From the Pulitzer press release:

“While broadening the competition, the Board stressed that all entered material — whether online or in print — should come from United States newspapers or news organizations that publish at least weekly, that are “primarily dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories,” and that “adhere to the highest journalistic principles.”

“Consistent with its historic focus on daily and weekly newspapers, the Board will continue to exclude entries from printed magazines and broadcast media and their respective Web sites.”

Well, now I’m just confused. What if you used to be a printed magazine, but now you’re a news organization that “publishes at least weekly” online? Does Pulitzer go by what you used to be? For that matter, your blog could be “dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories” that used to be considered more “magazine”-style reporting. (We’re no longer limited by “magazines are weekly, newspapers are daily” thinking here. What’s Slate?)

PaidContent.org noted the humor of this line from the release:

“The Board will continue to monitor the impact of the Internet…”

Yes? How? By the shrinking number of entrants that can follow your rules?

The Pulitzer is sticking with its anti-broadcast history and not allowing entries from broadcast media Websites. Spiffy. But what does that mean? What if WXXX has a hyper-local site that’s all print and pictures? Further, as we have asked in the past “WHAT IS A BROADCAST SITE ANYWAY? THEY’RE ALL WEBSITES!” The audience does not care about your old medium.

It gets more confusing still:

“In addition to text stories, the competition will continue to allow a full range of online content, such as interactive graphics and video, in nearly all categories.”

So video’s cool. Unless it’s been on television? What if the newspaper does a video piece and it appears on its companion TV station? What if a citizen journalist captures the best video of the year and sells it to a newspaper and a TV station? Do they get the Pulitzer for breaking news?

Why, oh why, can’t the Pulitzers recognize the change has come? Joseph Pulitzer died in 1904. And, by the way, he didn’t say “give these awards to newspapers or inventions connected to newspapers, for those shall ever be the one true news medium.” Isn’t it at least possible that he would have seen TV and the Web and thought “Wow! That’s amazing! Let’s give out some awards for great work!” This is right up there with the “What Would Murrow Do?” thinking that is holding back TV journalists. Who cares? What are we going to do to save a dying business?

If the Pulitzers are going to continue to mean anything, they should stand for excellence in journalism, regardless of the medium. Prize snobbery doesn’t help advance the state of the industry, it only reinforces the notion that “Newspaper Good, Internet Inferior.”

Who is going to prize that kind of thinking?

I have said to the network affiliates for years that there will be no such thing as a lead-in anymore. People watch shows, they don't watch networks. But with NBC's Leno experiment, I'm willing to amend my theory for the time being. There are plenty of predictions out there. I'm not going to add mine. Instead, I think this move is about the only choice NBC had – to keep the concept of a lead-in going.

People don't generally TiVo talk shows, and the Leno audience is older, more news-focused. Mind you, I still think the lead-in concept is a dying one, and finding a way to extend its shelf life a touch is a Band-Aid. But if there were any way to have an audience stick around consistently, night after weeknight, this would be it.

If I were an NBC affiliate, I'd take it. Considering that NBC has already said it's getting out of the expensive drama business, what options are left? Hoping that a crappy reality show catches on for a night?

The Leno audience will be, if nothing else, consistent. Whether they stay up through the news is anyone's guess. (And when did Conan O'Brien become so irreplaceable?) This is hardly a reinvention, but if you're an NBC affil looking for a little consistency, I suppose this may do it. This is not a long-term solution (the audience ages every year) but maybe a quick fix is in order.

My colleague Terry Heaton says this is “NBC giving up.” I agree that it's giving up on the way it used to do business. But I think NBC has been the boldest of the four networks in experimenting, and I'm all for giving it a try.

We’ve suggested before about the power of advertising on social media networks. Here’s some proof why.

On the day after the election, The New York Times purchased ad space on the front of Facebook, along with an interactive question (”What should Barack Obama do as his first post-inauguration action?”). In addition, Facebookers could “gift” each other a virtual copy of the Times’ front page from November 5th, with the headline “Obama Wins.”

Was it a success? An internal memo from New York Times President Scott Heekin-Canedy positively gushes:

“From our perspective, the (campaign) was a great success, garnering us 4.3 times the value of our spend. We reached 68.3 million individuals with our brand message. We increased our number of fans more than three times in just 24 hours — from 49,000 to 164,000 — and in the process far exceeded our 2008 goal of 100,000 fans. And we engaged the Facebook community in a lively conversation (more than 34,000 comments shared) on which issues are most important for the President-elect. More than 400,000 New York Times “gifts” were given by Facebook users to their friends. Possibly the greatest success of this campaign, however, is that our fans continue to rapidly grow (181,000+ fans as of November 19 ) into a powerful, free word-of-mouth network that we will leverage for future marketing messages.”

68 million people got the brand message. That’s about three times the audience of a top-rated TV show these days. 100,000 people actively signed on to “friend” Facebook, effectively volunteering to get future marketing messages. The Times was at the center of the Obama conversation on Facebook the day after the election. Good investment.

Lots of local sites make the mistake of trying to get into the “help wanted” business by trying to become the local Monster.com. This is usually a bad idea. There are some limited success stories, but for the most part, Monster is still – well – the monster in the room. On the other hand, you can offer what Monster doesn’t offer – a chance for great local networking, blogs and advice.

Right now, what employment-seekers need is to network. Yes – they’re looking for job leads. In October, the time spent on job search sites jumped 13% from the same month a year ago, “while the total number of job-site pages viewed rose 20% in the same period, according to comScore Inc,” writes the Wall Street Journal.

But these sites don’t know your town and city. What you can offer is talk and networking about the jobs special to your city. You can launch verticals in your market that are specific to your market. Find local employment gurus and give them free space to give advice. Outplacement firms would be a great advertising target for a site like this. Hold a meetup to launch the site. Get people talking with each other!

Have forums for discussion and lots of FREE job postings. The point isn’t the postings, mind you – it’s the discussion about the market and the advice each person can give to their fellow job-seeker. You can’t out-Monster Monster. But you can Meta-Monster. That is – you can be the local site where people talk about jobs. And because it’s local, you can own the discussion. All the more reason for local advertisers to be with you. As Terry says, our first mission is to enable local commerce. Local commerce starts with local employees.