Rupert Murdoch has just launched The Times paywall. Arch rival BBC Online is soon to launch its redesigned site. And a ‘Save the Daily Mirror’ Facebook page has launched as even more staff are cut. Last year most commentators predicted a slow death for newspapers. Indeed, 166 newspapers in the US ceased printing from 2008-9, and hundreds of UK journalists lost their jobs as their papers got shockingly thinner. So are newspapers really going the way of the telegram?
Some believe they are, but they certainly won’t become extinct. Rather, they will evolve to be a different beast altogether in the next ten years (if not earlier). The reason most newspapers suffer is that so many duplicate the same content. In other words, three newspapers reporting on the same football game in one city cannot profit. But if one newspaper has exclusive content the others don’t, then game on. This is exactly why regional papers have suffered so much – they need strong hyper-local content, otherwise they are just competing with other news sources when it comes to things like sports news and film reviews. Niche interest is therefore the name of the game. So newspapers are getting thinner, and those that do survive this exodus of readers will serve highly specific roles and have a super-strong editorial focus. Yes, they will survive and probably across multiple formats (apps, websites and some in print), but the content and audience will be very different.
This leads us to a perhaps familiar conclusion for healthcare communications. We really must all become accustomed to non-traditional PR tactics and opportunities. Yes, think Twitter, Facebook, SEO and social media. To think of a media campaign without these is cutting out a huge audience, and also drastically reducing your ‘opportunities to see’.
If you’re interested in the latest developments in the media and digital space, why not start by reading our latest edition of Core.
Tags: digital pharma, media, newspapers, pharma online