Gordon Crovitz, Former Publisher, Wall Street Journal
Waves of change, sometimes continuous sometimes terrifying, sometimes they seem to die out altogether, but there are relentless and unavoidable. Reflecting on waves of change, comes from three key sources, new technologies, new business models driven by technologies, unpredictable change of pace.
First rule of technology’s impact on consumer behavior: we always tend to overestimate impact in short term, underestimate in long run. When Queen Victoria in 1858 sent first trans-Atlantic cable telegram there were riots in U.S., people said “The Atlantic is dried up.” Victorian novel “Wired Love” about two telegraph operators who fall in love. In 1850s Rothschild complained that everyone could get the news. Newspapers had to start filtering news. WSJ founded in 1889 to democratize access to financial news when there were only about 200,000 shareholders. Rothschild might be amused to know that Western Union is now a financial services company.
Digital media delivers great choice, consumers have fragmented, content commoditized. In my experience consumer behavior has changed more in B2C than B2B. Silicon Valley focused on consumer-focused products, leading to advanced interfaces. Many finance professionals use Yahoo! Finance along with professional services. As Tom Glocer noted yesterday, business models have been more impacted in B2C. The tsunami that’s impacted broadcasters and other media channels, new media waste far less in advertising dollars. Google is of course the great disrupter in consumer, but TechTarget and paidContent.org disrupt in B2B media.
WSJ will retain hybrid model, works very well, unfortunate that others abandoned paid model. 10 million uniques each month, 1.2 million subs, now as many paying for online as for the print New York Times. Online journal’s segmenting for different products at different prices not new to B2B, new to B2C. A time of fast change in a slow-changing industry can offer great opportunities. Many companies are still transferring their structure to adapt to these changes. DJ had a real crisis a few years ago, most leading properties were losing money in 2005, reorged, no longer organized around distribution, reorged to focus on markets. Results encouraging, subscription acquisition dropped by 40 percent, print subs grew. More aggressive price segmentation yielded more money from long-term subscribers. On the way to double-digit margins. Margins are better than in most industries. “Change is a lot easier to make when you have no choice.”
So there are steps to be taken to respond to new consumer behavior, but any one approach is not sufficient. Software drives many changes, great waves of computing power, now content industry influences software industry, consumers now get the best of both approaches. Google’s a software/technology company but delivers massive amounts of content and monetizes in a media model. Who knew that millions of people would blog if only they could.
Harder question, what comes next? Five trends. First, who’s in charge? Which is king, content or distribution? Bad news is neither, consumers are in charge and unpredictable. Second, all media are new media or will be. Technology is low-cost for all information companies. Third, medium is not the message, oftentimes it blocks it. Newspapers grew up in an era reporting on what happened yesterday, now people knew about yesterday yesterday. Trade publishers miss an opportunity by focusing on just print. Fourth, content brands still matter. Decline in legacy brands can obscure the fact that many franchises as a whole remain valuable. Finally, software and information together are more valuable than either alone. Computers became easier to use, newer media platform like mobile designed with content built in.
Great reasons for optimism, what worked to great success in the past may not work in the future. but good reason for optimism. Having better information is key to success. Pioneering work on consumer content innovation can be embraced by B2B companies. Information companies can reach wider audiences and highly specialized segments more easily. Waves of change affect all consumers, your challenges are shared by everyone. Good luck in catching the next wave.
Question: Brands matter, certain brands will rise to the top, assuming that WSJ rises to the top, what do you do now?
Crovitz: Journal’s responsibility now, will be well received by readers.
Question: You’ve been the advocate for hybrid model, does that confuse consumers, does segmenting audience for advertisers meet the real goal?
Crovitz: At this point there’s a lot of free content available for readers and bloggers, evidence is that it’s not confusing to have people pay for some content, on the other hand, WSJ has relationships with portals to get access to content. More confusing to analysts trying to understand the economics of the model.
Question: Hybrid model has worked for WSJ, may work for other national brands, if you were a CEO of a local market paper, losing money, recognizing that young people don’t read papers, will by 2015 or 2020 will secondary markets disappear in print?
Crovitz: Up to editors to think about what the role of a newspaper really is. Old model is broken. Days can go by when I don’t read the local paper. Young people are wired, print version has different value, wonderful value in print if designed right. Reasons for optimism if editors are willing to make fundamental changes.
Question: As newspaper person, you put out a broad message, as we’re in a phase where people get the daily me with smaller slivers, people will not have the shared experiences, how will that play out in society when shared experiences like the SuperBowl aren’t there as much?
Crovitz: Opporunity to define communities of interest, broader than current hypersegmentation model, room for broader agenda focus, in case of WSJ a large percentage of lawyers subscribe to journal, there is a legal version of WSJ with a law blog, different style, more intimate, more specialized. Days of mass media being dominant waning,
Question: Forbes.com now considered more valuable than Forbes magazine. What did they do right, wrong.
Crovitz: Never Coke and Pepsi, they did a good job of converting a print brand into 24/7 brand, DJ had print and DJ newswires. Hats off to them.
Question: We tend to think of career paths, if you were talking to someone who wanted to be an executive editor in chief, what would be the learnings that they need in their career?
Crovitz: When I speak at business schools or journalism school, people still eager to enter. Like a lot of people the best way to learn about something is to do it. In small orgs you learn a lot about a lot, but big can be good. Don’t focus on theory of media, time to do that between jobs, focus on doing it. So may more media companies, so many more opportunities to contribute even if posting to one’s own blog site, in long term will result in higher.
Question: Newsmasters in newsrooms?
Crovitz: Hard for journalists to acknowledge what others do well. WSJ all things “D” blog, lists top ten stories from others that will be of interest, I for one find it to be extremely useful, moderated, curated by very smart editors, brands can deliver filtering, falls more to publishes and senior editors, will inceasingly include drawing attention to news from other sources.
Question: You became Publisher in ‘06, you were streamlining, that progress got Murdoch’s attention, if you look at DJ acquisitions, which ones were good or missed?
Crovitz: Couldn’t acquire Pat Spain’s company, without going into all companies like Marketwatch, were a lot of opportunities where the prices are reasonable now, this is going to be a very good year for transactions in spite of credit markets.
QUICK TAKE: Gordon is always a careful speaker, and in his new transition role he continues that tradition of highly considered wisdom, I appreciated his insights as always.
- John Blossom, Shore Communications
The Information Industry Summit is the digital information industry’s flagship conference. It provides strategic guidance to senior business leaders representing publishers, content technology companies, bankers, analysts and press.
Jason Kichline is ScribeMedia's project manager and producer of ScribeMedia's Emmy Award winning series Reporting AIDS. He likes typos, fast food and MacGyver like solutions to life's nagging problems.
Discussion
No comments for “Gordon Crovitz, Former Publisher, Wall Street Journal”
Post a comment