STATE OF NEWS MEDIAApril 18, 2014

Reminders

Your final blog is due Friday, April 25, 2014, by 5:00 p.m. Must include 2 pieces of multimedia, 2

interviews (one source must be a Subject Matter Expert), and must be 750 – 1000 words long. Submit it the same way we’ve been doing it (I’ll post a link on the class blog the night before).

That day for class you MUST BRING A HARD COPY OF YOUR STORY IN. THAT DAY WE WILL BE PEER EDITING.

May 2, 2014 – I will review for the final.

Overview – Pew Research Findings

40% of local TV consists of weather, traffic and sports

Newspaper newsroom cutbacks have totaled 30% since 2000

A growing list of media outlets, such as Forbes magazine, use technology by a company called Narrative Science to produce content by way of algorithm, no human reporting necessary.

Overview

Research found campaign reporters were primarily acting as megaphones, relaying campaign statements, but not investigating or contextualizing them

PR jobs on the rise since 1980s

Six Trends in News Media

Trend One

Public is noticing the effects of newsroom cutbacks 31% of U.S. adults have stopped turning to a

news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting.

48% of an informed public had noticed newspapers running less complete stories, while 31% noticed fewer stories.

Print Ad Revenue fell for the sixth consecutive year in 2012.

Overall revenue down 52% between 2003 - 2012

Trend Two

News industry losing out on digital ads Mobile advertising grew 80% in 2012 to $2.6

billion. But only one ad segment is available to news:

display Local digital advertising is also growing—22% in

2012. Improved geo-targeting is allowing many national

advertisers to turn to Google, Facebook, etc. to buy ads that once might have gone to local media.

It appears the news industry may have been outflanked by technology giants.

Trend Three

Sponsorship ads seeing growth Though it remains small in dollars, the

category’s growth rate is second only to that of video.

Sponsorship ads rose 38.9%, to $1.56 billion; that followed a jump of 56.1% in 2011.

The development, however, runs the risk of confusing readers about the difference between advertising and news content. 

Trend Four

Growth of paid digital content changing revenue and content 450 of the nation’s 1,380 dailies have started or announced

plans for some kind of paid content subscription or pay wall plan, in many cases opting for the metered model that allows a certain number of free visits before requiring users to pay.

With digital ad revenue growing at an anemic 3% a year in the newspaper industry, digital subscriptions are seen as an increasingly vital component of any new business model

The New York Times reports that its circulation revenue now exceeds its advertising revenue

The rise of digital paid content could also have a positive impact on the quality of journalism as news organizations strive to produce unique and high-quality content that the public believes is worth paying for.

Trend Five

Local TV newly vulnerable Local TV audiences were down across every

key time slot and across all networks in 2012. Regular local TV viewership among adults

under 30 fell from 42% in 2006 to just 28% in 2012.   Topics covered by local news (weather and breaking news, traffic) are easily replaced by online outlets.

Overall, average revenue for news-producing stations declined by more than a third (36%) from 2006 to 2011.

Trend Six

Word of mouth, social media, lead to greater news consumption For nearly three-quarters of adults (72%), the most

common way to get news from friends and family is by having someone talk to them—either in person or over the phone.

Social networking is now a part of this process as well: 15% of U.S. adults get most of their news from friends and family this way, and the vast majority of them (77%) follow links to full news stories.

Among 18-to-29 year-olds, the percentage that primarily relies on social media for this kind of news already reaches nearly one-quarter.

Of note… The Denver Post ranks fourth in the

nation for daily digital editions, behind NYTimes, WSJ and New York Post

2013 Report

Level of Energy to the news industry not seen for some time. This year’s activities have created a new sense of optimism or perhaps hope for American Journalism.

Growth in Digital Reporting Example: Vice

TV Reporting – 71% of adults watch the local news. Only 38% of adults watch cable news.

2013 Report

1/3 of adults have abandoned their news outlets The elite are the first to go They are the first to pay for content Reason: Things ain’t what they used to be.

Discussion

Did anything surprise you about these trends?

Reflecting on your own news consumption habits, did you find the data presented in your readings representative of your experiences?