Traditional publishing house, REST IN PEACE

This is the headline that greets you as you land on a website erected as a monument to commemorate the decline of traditional media. A photograph of a man who appears to be in danger and possibly has just lost his job accompanies this headline. If this doesn’t paint a bleak picture, keep reading the 548 headlines that all sing to the same tune like the following:

• Bad times: NYT says revenue fell 13.9% last month – Forbes.com
• The men’s monthly magazine Arena will stop printing after 22 years
• Cosmopolitan UK publisher to cut 100 jobs

There is even a website titled Newspaper Death Watch that chronicles all the publishing houses and publishing houses that go out of business. All pretty morbid, don’t you think?

The deadly spell

Let’s take a quick look at traditional media and how the internet casts its deadly spell.

In the old days, we are talking about 500 years ago; Gutenberg revolutionized the printing industry by inventing the printing press. This meant that Bibles could be produced in a fraction of the time it used to be. This also meant more copies in a shorter time and the Word of God had a greater reach in a shorter time. Newspaper houses and magazine publishers still use a printing press today. (well thanks captain obvious).

Much later, shortly after the advent of electricity, the world was blessed with other media breakthroughs, namely radio and, a few years later, television. Marketers and ad agencies had it all figured out by designing integrated marketing campaigns with astronomical budgets. Ah, the good times. Well, to the dismay of many of these agencies, this media landscape began to change.

Behold! Enter the WWW

At first, a website was seen as a cute way to put your company brochure online, and furthermore, the disastrous dot bomb era created skepticism that labeled the Internet a bad media and business channel. .

Fortunately, since then the Internet has matured. Now, in countries where broadband has reached high levels of penetration in homes, the web has become the preferred medium for consumers.

Why? Because people can research, shop online, watch videos, and connect with friends from the comfort of their own homes. People can also choose which media they want to consume, where and when they choose, especially with mobile connectivity. Marketers can no longer also dictate what advertising messages people submit to.

Social Media, The New Black

Then there is the phenomenon of social media. It changed the media landscape forever. Social media websites have allowed consumers to connect with friends, family, colleagues and colleagues in ways never imaginable a few decades ago.

Technology has empowered the consumer to become a prosumer. Prosumers are consumers who produce content such as videos, photos, and blogs that can be instantly distributed and shared among millions of people via social media platforms. This is also known as User Generated Content or UCG.

Here’s some interesting trivia on the reach of traditional media vs. Internet and social networks.

Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:

• Radio – 38 years
• TV – 13 years
• Internet – 4 years
• The iPod – 3 years
• Facebook – 2 years

So how does the internet affect traditional media?

The Internet has diminished the need for traditional media because it allowed consumers to join social societies within their neighborhoods, in their countries, and internationally. It has allowed them to converse in their spare time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with friends.

Considering all that has been said, the demise of traditional media can be largely attributed to the following factors:

1. Decrease in the number of readers: The distribution of free news and information on the web has led to a decline in the readership of traditional publications.
2. Decrease in income: The decrease in the number of readers means that advertisers will spend their money elsewhere and this leads to a decrease in advertising revenue.
3. Real-time updates: Traditional media cannot compete with user-generated content that is instantly updated and immediately available for everyone to see.
4. The rise of UGC websites: People have the freedom of unlimited real-time comments on content, while traditional media is static and a one-way communication tool.
5. Online audio / video channels: People can choose what they want to see and hear, when and where they want without any advertising interrupting their experience.

Just put. The Internet has revolutionized the way things are done today. It has revolutionized the way we do business, the way we communicate, and has broken down the walls of traditional media.

A recent example is Unilever UK’s decision to fire Lowe, its 15-year-old ad agency, in favor of crowdsourcing, meaning it has opened up the creative field of the brand to agencies and basically anyone who can. think of an idea, all over the world. Of course, this is done on the Internet.

Traditional media will continue to exist for a while, but the Internet is becoming more and more integrated into our daily lives.

Think about this. Could you do without Mail & Guardian or MensHealth Mag for quite some time, maybe live quite happily without it? But you dare to cut that ADSL connection …