Becoming The Economist of Metro Newspapers

& The Pursuit of the Tablet

Audience

Jim MoroneyApril 2012

WHAT IS THE SAME

The goal of journalism:

An informed public that can make wise decisions

to govern itself.  [[

WHAT IS NOT THE SAME

2007

$42.2M

2011

$20.6M

WE ARE NO LONGER PUBLISHING FOR A MASS AUDIENCE

WE ARE PUBLISHING FOR “THE MASS INTELLIGENT”

As The Economist labels it.

DEM

OG

RAPH

ICS

MARKET SIZEBIGSMALL

ELITE MEDIA

MASSINTELLIGENCE

MASSMEDIA

AUDIENCE:THE MASS INTELLIGENT

AUDIENCE:THE MASS INTELLIGENT

THE ECONOMISTTHE NEW YORKERTHE ATLANTICHBOART GALLERIESLIVE THEATERCLASSICAL CONCERT

People who read/watch/attend at least two of…

PEOPLE MAGAZINEUS WEEKLY

THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

SPORTS ILLUSTRATEDESPN

FAMILY GUYTHE SIMPSONS

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVEAMERICAN IDOL

33%

39%

32%

MIX & MATCH

[ SOURCE: MRI, FALL 2007 ]

We do not believe

that dumbing down

our content is how

we will succeed.

There is a sufficient

audience for intelligent

reporting, curating and

aggregating of news

and information.

Harry Potter

HBO

“The Lion King”

“The King’s Speech”

The Economist

The New York Times

“ “Our writing will remain the core of what we and all other clever publicationsreaching clever people do.

[John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist]

VALUE OF CONTENT

Rele

vanc

e Value

Differentiation

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

ARE COMMODITIES

is table stakes. Consumers expect you to have it, yet you can’t win at it.

TODAY the value of reporting lies in

& WHAT HOW, WHY

IT MEANS TO ME

PICA Perspective Interpretation Context Analysis

PICA means Beat reporters.Columnists.Subject matter experts.

A focus on certain categories of local coverage where you can go deep and own education, economy, government, sports, arts, etc.

Print advertising revenue will no longer support high-end journalism

For local media, ad revenue derived from digital publishing will not pay for the cost of creating relevant and differentiated content that attracts a ‘mass intelligent’ audience

You will need to cross-subsidize your journalism beyond advertising.

THE FINANCIAL MODEL CHALLENGE

LEAN BACK 2.0:

THE FIRST AGE:LEAN-BACK PRINT

RITUAL PLEASURE OF READING

THE SECOND AGE:LEAN-FORWARD WEB

SNACKING AND RESEARCH,COMMUNITY SHARING

THE THIRD AGE:LEAN-BACK DIGITAL

LEAN-BACKONLY BETTER

O

“ “I have gradually become used to dividing my reading into two zones: The work, laptop, info zone; and the chill, relaxing, leisurely read of the tablet.

[Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times]

IMMERSED IN THE CONTENT:

42% OF TABLET NEWS READERS REGULARLY READ IN-DEPTHNEWS ARTICLES. ANOTHER 40% SOMETIMES DO THIS.

THEY ARE THREE TIMES AS LIKELY TO REGULARLY READ IN-DEPTH ARTICLES AS TO WATCH NEWS VIDEOS.

[ SOURCE: PEW Project for Excellent Journalism]

[ SOURCE: PEW RESEARCH (US) IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ECONOMIST GROUP, OCTOBER 2011]

NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME:TIME SPENT WITH NEWS NOW COMPARED

WITH BEFORE OWNING A TABLET

Share of US Traffic:

Class web

91.8%

Mobile web:

5.2%

Tablets

2.5% Other

0.5%

WE AREN’T ABANDONING THE WEB

BUT OUR DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES ARE FOCUSED ON THE TABLET

[ SOURCE: GARTNER, Emarketer ]

21

SUMMARY

Content derives value from its relevance and its differentiation.

For local media organizations, this means covering local news. It is the most relevant and differentiating reporting you can do.

There is very little value in W,W,W,W, reporting. It’s undifferentiated and a commodity.

You can’t charge for commodity content.

We are working to put more PICA into our reportIng in order to differentiate it and build value for it.

In order to do this, we are working to build more subject matter expertise in our newsroom and through affiliations, particularly area universities.

3

45

6

87

SUMMARY

PICA combined with scales says “you can’t get this kind of reporting any other place” This means differentiation.

PICA and “intelligent” reporting is not a mass audience strategy

We are focused on a smaller audience that will pay for high-end, quality journalism9

10

11

We believe this audience and this kind of journalism will rapidly be building a news reading habit on tablets – and for now, that means the iPad.

The one catch: We must preserve the scale of our newsroom to be successful with this strategy and to do this, we must develop sources of revenue other than advertising.