If you regularly read this blog, you've heard me opine that living in Detroit in this economy often feels a lot like being at "ground zero." As tough as it may be wherever you are reading this, it's a few clicks more desperate – and insane – here.
Consider: Our mayor recently went to jail – before resigning because of a text messaging sex scandal. Our core economic base – cars and trucks – is in the throes of bankruptcy. Our football team just went 0-16. We are in danger of losing the North American International Auto Show – here in DETROIT!!! – because our City Council meetings resemble mud wrestling tournaments.
But if you do morning radio here in Detroit, it's a fountain of great material. Whether you're Mike Clark, Deminski & Doyle, Dick Purtan, or Paul W. Smith, there is never a shortage of things to talk about, parody, or stir up on the phones.
There's only one problem, especially for a fiftysomething guy like me.
We don't have a newspaper in this town anymore. Oh sure, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press still publish, sort of. But home delivery is down to three days a week. On the other four days, you either pick up an abbreviated edition at newsstands. Or you still subscribe so you can go to a website where you can still read "the paper." Or you can go to www.freep.com and read a less detailed web edition.
In short, it sucks. Because reading a daily newspaper is a habit that you just cannot practice on certain days of the week when it economically suits the Detroit Media Partnership, the company that now runs the business operations of both papers. And the only real alternative – the suburban daily, the Observer Eccentric papers – shut down last week.
So, you know what's happening? I'm getting out of the newspaper habit. I find I'm reading the Sunday paper, but I'm even losing interest in it.
And yet, all kinds of things are occurring in Detroit. Major films are being made here, under the auspices of the Michigan Film Office. The Wings and Pistons are in the playoffs. The NFL Draft is this weekend, and you never know what the Lions are thinking. Will GM have to declare bankruptcy? But I'm not reading about these events in any paper. I'm sort of web wandering to find the news.
This isn't how the Detroit Media Partnership planned it. I'm supposed to get hooked on the online subscriber model, and pay for my web version of the Free Press.
It's not happening. I appreciate how newspapers are grappling with trying to find a viable business model. As we have often discussed in this space. Radio better be taking copious notes while we watch newspaper companies flail away at different concepts and monetization strategies.
To some degree, our new Tech Poll speaks volumes about the dilemma being faced by big newspapers. Overall, less than 60% of our respondents say they now read a daily paper on a regular basis, with the highest readership coming from upper demos people like me. And among 18-34s, less than half now read a newspaper with regularity.
But here's the rub:
Among the heavier 25-54 readers, half lean toward the print format. Among the lightest newspaper fans, it's reversed as they skew toward the online edition. And yet, the Detroit papers are trying to entice their most regular readers toward a format they are less likely to embrace. What a mess.
And then I started thinking what would happen if an embattled radio company took the same approach as the Detroit Media Partnership. Imagine if your favorite radio station made this announcement:
Because of the economy, we can no longer afford to broadcast seven days a week. So, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday, we're shutting off the transmitter. But you can still access us on our websites. The same great programming, but on those days, you'll have to listen to us online.
Yeah, right.
We may be moving along technologically, but there's a lot to be said for habit. Let's face it – for morning shows and stations themselves, it's often about getting into that everyday habitual listening that moves the ratings needle. You can't broadcast only sometimes, and build the kind of consistency necessary to become a regular part of people's lives. And you can't limit home delivery to certain days of the week, and expect consumers to chase your content on the Internet.
This is a bad model, and I now wish the Free Press would have come to its customers with a request for a price increase. It probably tested poorly in their focus groups, but I would definitely pay more if that damn paper were in my mailbox everyday. After going through this checkered experience the last several weeks, I bet I'm not the only one that feels this way.
Meantime in radio, we have to figure out a way to keep that habit going, keep the content coming, and do a better job of marketing our brands in a tough economy. But trust me – whatever we do, let's keep the transmitters on.
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Newspapers hurt their cause by cutting way back on content when the revenue slowed and that is accelerating their downfall. My local newspaper is far less important to me than it was a few years ago because there is so much less in it.
The other problem with print to online is that even if readership were to fully transfer, a set of eyes online won’t command the revenue that they will in print.
Radio is also cutting their product value dramatically as revenue slows and it will inevitably bring the same result – make the medium less important to listeners. Online isn’t an option for radio because they royalties owed are higher than the bluest sky revenue projection and growing.
If radio doesn’t secure an online opportunity via a much more reasonable royalty structure and exercise it aggressively, it could well evolve into all Ryan Seacrest, all the time.
The newspaper business along with radio has not developed New Era business models.
Newspapers like the Free Press and Detroit News along with others act as if they didn’t know the internet was taking audience away. Newspapers, like in Detroit, never adjusted to their market. Comprehension levels nationally are 4th grade. I would assume due to school dropout rates it’s a little lower in Detroit. A tabloid, like the New York Daily News would get people reading newspapers. The Detroit Media Partnership has said – “Tabloids only work in a public transportation city”, “We don’t want to “dumb down” the papers”. Even network TV news websites have added a big chunk of fluff.
As for radio, in the electronic media, the industry doesn’t know how to use the internet to its best advantage either. What Dan Mason at CBS has been doing is an example on the value of internet sites.
Many, should I say most radio station websites have no reason to click. Radio salespeople do not know how to sell it. The latest act of stupidity from radio management is to stop streaming. Airing programming with commercials to a larger audience sounds logical to me. Add that audience to broadcast audience numbers – internet clicks are measurable.
Radio formats used today are basically the same formats used in the 1960’s (the era that 1010 WINS in NYC became the first all news radio station). The only tool radio management seems to know is to cut, and I agree there have been a lot of costs that shouldn’t be there to begin with, but you cannot cut to profitability. Check out Darryl Wyckoff’s study of service businesses (radio is a service business) and find out why. But where is the forward thinking – I don’t see any.
So, newspapers cannot figure it out and obviously neither can radio.
Lou and Bob, thanks for the insightful comments about newspapers…and of course, radio. We are focusing a great deal on newspapers in this space because of the obvious connections between the “fifth estate” and radio. Both business were more than challenged before the economic meltdown, and I believe we can learn from their mistakes and experiments. A key thread in both your comments relates to developing that new business model that is so necessary and budget cuts that impact content. Both are major reasons why radio is having problem fixing itself while flying at 30,000 feet. And as e have pointed out before, radio stations sound remarakbly unchanged over the past 30 years while the audience is moving at a very fast space. And even physical radios have not kept up with the times – there are still many “boomboxes” in homes (and bathrooms) all over America. Thanks again for reading the blog, and taking the time to comment.