The Media Professional

A farmer was interviewed on television several years ago. He was decrying the fact that he was losing money on every bushel of wheat he produced.

The interviewer showed us the numbers. So much for seed and fertilizer. So much for labor. So much for equipment. So much for debt service on the land.

Add the costs together. Subtract the price he received for his wheat and the man was losing money by farming. (Seems he wanted the government to give him bigger subsidies.) It was a sad story.

Except that the money he was losing each year was almost exactly what he was paying the bank in debt service on his land.

Without that note, he would have at very least, broken even in a down market.

So, it’s interesting to see that the newspapers and media companies that are suffering worst right now, are the ones that are the most heavily leveraged.

In an informally published list of profitability by newspaper property, a media chain showed a profit from every single paper but one.

But that one paper was losing so much that the rest of the company was being dragged down. All of the profitable properties (one small paper was sending 45 cents of every dollar of revenue to the bottom line) were expected to downsize and economize to make up the losses of the one unprofitable major metro paper.

What would happen if the owners were to bite the bullet and sell off the unprofitable unit, no matter how ‘prestigious’ it is?

Then bring in the managers of the smaller papers to replace the executives who thought that newspapers could borrow their way to profitability.

Beats begging the government for a subsidy!

J.David Knepper

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Advertising is planting seeds.

Selling is irrigating the plants, pulling weeds and hoping for the harvest.

Marketing is finding and plowing the field. It precedes everything else.

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The logical extension of cost-cutting is total elimination of the enormous cost of the paper, ink, personnel and distribution involved in publishing on paper. Whoever first suggested replacing the paper medium was probably praised by his board of directors for being willing to make the tough decisions, for being forward-looking, for being innovative, for seeing the future of the industry.

So, capital and hope are invested in online ventures. Audio, video, interactive features are used online, which attract younger people, who will pay to visit and will create buzz, which will attract advertisers, who will pay more money, which will save the company, the reasoning goes. Improved websites promise all this without the costs of publishing on paper.

Finally, presses go off edition and ‘papers’ go strictly online.

But people are not attracted to the newspaper website by its audio; radio does audio better. People are not attracted to the newspaper website by its video; television does video better. People are not attracted to the newspaper website by its interactivity; Fox News, CNN and less impressive networks have much better interactivity.

No planet ever welcomed a shuttle just because it was a shuttle. It welcomed the shuttle because it was part of the Starship Enterprise. Without the mother ship, the shuttle wouldn’t be there.

What’s true for shuttle craft is true of newspaper websites. If the newspaper is gone, the newspaper website is just another choice among thousands of online choices featuring better audio, better video, better everything. Maintaining popular local features may delay the inevitable failure of the website for a short while, but without the professional journalism and the credibility of daily publication in a mass medium, the project is doomed.

The sad truth is that a local online newspaper without a local paper newspaper is no newspaper at all. And like a shuttle without a mother ship, it is not leaving the ground.

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“Confessions of an Advertising Man” – David Ogilvy
“My First Sixty-Five Years in Advertising” – Maxwell Sackheim
“Being Direct” – Lester Wunderman
“The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR” – Al Ries & Laura Ries

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Revenue in newspapers is down. Circulation in newspapers is down. Stock prices in newspapers are down. Concern about the future of newspapers is the only thing that is up.

And yet…newspapers are the last of the great, mass media. The story needs to be told.

Look first at newspapers’ two historic competitors. Television gets more fragmented each year with hundreds of outlets now available to most people. Broadcast radio may soon be eclipsed by subscription satellite services to vehicles where most people traditionally listen. Radio and television are mere shadows of their former selves.

But the local newspaper is still ordered and read in more than thirty percent of the homes in most markets.

Are the numbers down? Yes, certainly. Is newspaper out? Certainly not. At this particular time, the daily newspaper is the only medium left that can deliver a high percentage of the homes in a market at a reasonable cost.

It’s the last of the great, mass media.

If you have examined advertising media lately, you have heard a lot about how targeted particular media are. “Our (Magazine, website, channel, bathroom stall message board, etc.) reaches (Name the market) more effectively than anyone else.” Or, “Only people who want to buy your product are reading your message. There is no wasted coverage.”

Such claims are coded messages that their reach is shallow. Many media have so few readers or viewers or visitors that they have to fall back on the old target market argument. It’s really all they have.

Newspapers, on the other hand, are still a mass medium. All of those homes that get the newspaper represent potential customers for whatever is being sold, even if no-one in the home knew the product even existed before the paper landed on the driveway this morning.

The power to influence buying decisions is great, but the power to influence people beyond the limited cluster of folks who have already decided to buy is awesome.

And only a mass medium like newspaper can still do that.

That’s the story that needs to be told. Newspapers are the last of the great, mass media.

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American newspapers, anxious to lower their costs, have outsourced many of their production functions to countries, such as India, where costs are lower. Indians aren’t necessarily better artists than the American artists they replace. Their labor is simply less expensive to purchase…today.

The ready supply of available workers in India allows their costs to be low.

But, as soon as the demand for those production workers outstrips their availability, the price for their labor will rise. In fact, the cost for Indian labor is already rising in response to the changed markets for certain types of labor.

So, when Indian firms, whether newspapers or service bureaus, eventually need to trim their own costs, they may well emulate their American friends and outsource Indian jobs to other countries.

Won’t that be something to watch?

J.David Knepper

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If someone asks about Digital vs. Print Media, I guess we’re all supposed to say that digital is the most environmentally responsible choice for distributing information today.

Actually, it depends upon the communication itself.

Look at companies whose internal communications are converted to digital for environmental reasons. No more paper memos, they say. We’re saving trees. We’re saving thousands of dollars in printing costs at the same time. “We’re Green. We’re Green,” they chant proudly.

Problem is, the electronically-distributed information is still needed on a paper base for portability, markup, and collaboration. Hence, employees simply print the documents at their desks.

Consequently, enterprise-wide, wastebaskets overflow with misprinted materials. Ink jet cartridges are purchased by the pallet, printer paper by the car load. Every employee is a part-time printer.

No study is ever commissioned to measure the environmental damage and increased costs of such ill planned Green efforts.

Same with mass marketing efforts. If your printed communication is so poorly written and designed that nearly every recipient will simply trash it unread, go digital. There are environmental savings whenever someone can hit “Delete” instead of physically putting paper into the waste stream. And you’ll also be able to boast about the trees you’re saving.

However, nothing electronic can replace the texture, feel and effectiveness of well written, carefully designed, and skillfully crafted printed materials.

And once such materials are produced, they can be enjoyed again and again with no adverse effect on the environment.

J.David Knepper

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Newbies left DINFOS as productive team members within a few short weeks from a standing start. I saw Infantrymen and Marines become working Journalists, Airmen and Seamen become functional Broadcasters in the concentrated courses offered. Many graduates of four-year schools would be expected to work as interns before real employment offers could be made. DINFOS graduates were expected to be productive immediately upon graduation.

DINFOS on an applicant’s resumé impresses those of us who attended the school.

We Reservists spent a fair amount of time pitching reporters on the merits of covering what our Citizen Soldiers were doing. We then spent more time trying to get those reporters to cover the events without showing their anti-military biases. Public Relations or Public Affairs? Who cares? We were trying to put forth a positive message about our client, the Army.

The Public Information Office provided very good training for media people, for public relations people, for advertising people, for news people. I’m glad I had the opportunity to serve in the 372nd Public Information Detachment, USAR.

I learned much and use what I learned every day.

J.David Knepper

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Insurance is one of the most commoditized industries on earth. Who stands out? Geico’s Cavemen, maybe? The Gecko? If a small business doesn’t have 550 million dollars to spend promoting its image, it’s going to have to rely on providing something Geico doesn’t.

Serving a niche market won’t make it. A niche simply limits the number of people a small company is willing to serve.

They should consider advertising in mass media. Newspapers, radio, television. Media the ‘experts’ tell them they can’t afford. Proven media that reaches people. They should quit trying all the ways of limiting their marketing to people who searched for them…or opted-in six vendors back…or fit some profile they think wants to hear from them. Instead, they should put their message in front of as many people as they can afford and let the market tell them how it wants to be served.

Small businesses have an advantage that no large company enjoys…they’re nimble. When their market tells them what’s important, they serve them that way. They can change their message on a daily basis if they need to do so. They can zig and zag in and out of service areas in less time than Geico would take to send emails to the various vice presidents needed to appoint a steering committee.

Their way through the clutter is to make their message timely. Make it useful to the reader, viewer, listener. Make it interesting.

By the way, the people who respond to such advertising are calling because the small company is offering what they want, when they want it, in the way they want it. Such respondents make much better customers and clients than folks who call to find the lowest price.

A small business’s carefully-crafted message can make it stand out in the right way.

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Most of the newspaper industry’s wounds are self-inflicted. Here’s another example.

In several instances over the last few years, whole departments in newspapers have streamlined and modernized in order to become more efficient. Operations were centralized between sister papers. Staffing reduced. Procedures revamped. Efficiencies effected.

Employees were given expensive coaching on how to handle change. How to find misplaced cheese. How to sit at the feet of animals to learn values. How to root around in other employees’ silage.

Then, as soon as revamped operational plans were proven, entire departmental functions were sent to Asia. In short, employees who sacrificed and worked to make their companies more efficient and profitable were rewarded, ultimately, with unemployment. Their jobs were not eliminated but simply given to other people on another continent.

If you find a newspaper company that has recently implemented or is currently using what they call ‘quality management principles,’ you may want to look beyond the rhetoric. See if the aim is effecting efficiency or simply reducing costs.

The former, if done well, will accomplish the second as a by-product.

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