C I T Y . H A L L

Is Rupert Murdoch the decoy for News Corps’ real digital content monetization strategy?

He’s brilliant that Simon.

simontebrinke:

by Simon te Brinke
Digital Communications Strategist
Gramercy Park Consulting

As a media communications professional of nearly 2 decades let me say that I’m a massive fan of Rupert Murdoch.  I think he’s a visionary and a media genius. I regularly use him as a reference and role model in many presentations to clients and colleagues.

That said I simply cannot understand the strategic rationale behind why News Corp (and its digital subsidiaries and assets) propose charging for online content.  I’ve scratched my head on this proposition ever since I first became aware of it.

Each time I think about this notion I can’t help but think of one industry in particular that has hemorrhaged since the rise and rise of digital media, that being the music industry.

Since its birth the internet gave the consumer a new platform to both acquire and share music (be it legal or otherwise).  At the OnHollywood 2009 Forum in West Hollywood this year I heard a gentleman from the William Morris Talent Agency talking about how music artists are increasingly becoming entrepreneurs (in their own right).  Many artists (‘Fiddy Cent’ was one that I recall) are now communicating and transacting directly with their audience (and fans) and thus cutting out the records labels, artist managers and anyone else standing in front of them with their hands out in the process.

It would be safe to say that consumers successfully steered the music industry agenda to their advantage and that the internet enabled this important conversation to occur.

So how is online news any different?

I completely understand and respect that quality journalism will (or should) always reign supreme and readers should be presented with fair, unbiased and trustworthy content. My father was a journalist.

However in today’s digital media world where social media acts as one of the most powerful trust agents, does today’s reader really need content that is framed by an established news brand such as The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times?

Or are readers developing new digital media evaluation skills allowing them to filter and choose credible content, written by authors, writers and passionate enthusiasts who are all willing to write and publish fair, unbiased and trustworthy content – without a masthead brand sitting over the top of the author?

We have evolved as media consumers.  We read differently, we listen differently, we contribute differently, we watch differently, we act differently and we share differently to the way we used to.  And what’s more important, we’ve evolved to evaluate media sources differently.

Before, I used to value a radio station, a newspaper or a free-to-air TV station as a trusted source of news content because those were my only options.  Today, I’m much more attuned to how I read and evaluate news and I’m more likely to steer towards the news sources that ‘people-like-me’ read because I know that those people are part of a trusted network of ‘people-like-me(us)’!

And given that I have the attention span of a gold fish, I’m also more likely to read news in a micro-blogging format such as an RSS feed reader, a daily email summary or something like a Twitter style news service.  I’ve personally evolved to liking ‘news-in-headlines’ – that’s if the headline can tell me what I need to know without having to read the content. Am I lazy? Or cramming in more content today than I ever?

This isn’t an offline versus online argument (god that’s boring).  It’s just that we’ve evolved and we are using the tools we’ve been equipped with.  So it makes sense that our ‘media source’ skills have evolved and those new skills are being constantly shaped as new media sources like Twitter, Digg, Facebook etc are presented to us.

But ultimately it’ll be the ‘people-like-me’ who are going to influence my media consumption and not a news brand in the ‘old media’ sense.

So I just can’t see how paying for content is going to work for me unless those news networks and mastheads have lots and lots of ‘people-like-me’, chosen by me, on my terms, because I trust them and I like their content.  Then, and only then, I might (MIGHT) pay.

I recently I read an online quote by Dave Leitao, former men’s basketball coach of the University of Virginia, regarding one of their star players;

“We use him more on that particular play as a decoy because we knew he would attract attention.”

So I wonder? Is Rupert Murdoch a decoy for News Corp because he certainly does attract some attention!  Does the rest of the media world scramble to put in place online charging models when Mr Murdoch says he’s going to?  It might.

But when ‘god’ speaks, people listen.  I did, but that doesn’t mean I’m going pay for biblical content when I can get it for free, from people I trust, in my personal, trusted network, in a format, style and place that suits me, the reader and the consumer of the content.