The pureplays are the real enemy
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal contains a graphic I want to share to restate a theme central to the vision we’re trying to share with local media companies here at AR&D.
The article is about the slowing growth in online ad revenue for the newspaper industry and how that suggests advertisers are moving money online but NOT to the coffers of the newspaper industry. It’s an interesting read, but take a close look at the graphic called “Losing Ground.”
While local media companies continue to slug it out with each other, this illustrates that the internet pureplay companies are the real enemy in the quest for LOCAL ad dollars. TV stations will look at this and say, “Hey, everybody, we grew 5.2%!” But look at the paltry 7.1% share and contrast that with the pureplays who own almost 40% of the market and grew at a 22% clip. Directory companies (Yellow Pages) are trending downward, but they still take over 11% of the local pie.
Let me repeat what I believe is THE most important truth about local Media 2.0: the real enemy here is the internet pureplays, driven by the personal media revolution. Unless and until we can get our minds around that, we’ll never create the kinds of local online businesses necessary to compete.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:09 am
knowing who thy enemy is is vital.
acting strictly in a defensive mode is what i see locals doing while the pure plays are on the offense.
gaining ground when you always seem back on your heels is a tall task.
good luck putting points on the board with “we’re up 5%”.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:04 am
[…] WSJ reports newspaper’s move to the web may be too little too late as most of online ad growth is coming from sites NOT associated with a traditional media outlets. Sure TV is in the red but Terry Heaton is quick to note in TV terms “look at the paltry 7.1% share.” […]