KEY POINTS:
As everywhere in the Western world, there is an explosion of new media in Australia, and the battle for eyeballs is on.
The internet challenges newspapers for dominance in classified advertising, especially employment. Then there's mobile telephone technology, which carries everything from headlines to sporting contests. Says one savvy media practitioner: "Every arrival of new media has been marked by the cannibalisation of the old." That's why The Newspaper Works campaign is at once so interesting and so vital.
Grouping together News Limited (for which this writer is a columnist), Fairfax, WA News, APN (owner of the Herald) and Rural Press, The Newspaper Works aims to highlight the value of newspapers as an effective medium for advertising content and to illustrate the impact of newspapers in setting agendas and campaigning for goals. It's an argument worth considering.
There's a famous remark from an advertiser on television to the effect that half the dollars he spent on the medium were clearly wasted. Unfortunately, the advertiser could never tell just which half that was.
Australia's newspaper industry is now endeavouring to convince the advertising industry that dollars spent on the print media are more valuable than they perhaps have realised.
And the market is certainly rich enough to pursue vigorously.
As the Australian Financial Review reported recently, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers' annual media report estimates that the Australian media and entertainment sector is worth some $23.7 billion in revenue. Of this, the internet snaps up some $3.48 billion, an increase of more than 15 per cent in a year, while print media pick up another $5.2 billion. But looking to the future, internet revenue is estimated to reach some $5.13 billion by 2011. Newspapers will also rise, but more modestly, reaching some $5.5 billion by the same year.
So The Newspaper Works has set about increasing the share flowing to print. For newspapers, there is good news, particularly in the estimation of readership.
The Newspaper Works is not proposing to spend some $10 million over the next few months without having detailed research at its disposal. As CEO Tony Hale makes clear, research done by Celsius Research sought a critical perspective about media, and newspapers in particular, in the contemporary landscape.
Newspapers emerged in quite reasonable order. The research suggests that most Australians (around 74 per cent) are consuming more types of media than ever, and the vast majority (around 80 per cent) are busy doing other things while consuming media.
This affords newspapers an enormous advantage, for there is no question that newspaper readers are focused exclusively on the content of stories, photographs, cartoons and advertising, while riffling through the daily paper or reading online. Perhaps that's why newspapers continue to have the impact in Australia that traditionally they have always claimed.
Hale observes: "Newspapers set the agenda and shape the day like no other medium. Newspapers have more journalists and resources applied to the collection, interpretation and analysis of news. They help us make sense of the world ... "
Arising from this, proponents argue that for advertisers the key words are convergence, personalisation, participation and engagement.
Blogging is an example. Some 150 journo blogs now operate in Australia, with some 30,000 comments being contributed every day; 23 per cent of Australians surveyed are spending more time participating in personal broadcasting, including blogging and the sending of photos. Readers are having direct impact upon newspapers, with the sending of photos and through blogs that actually shape and influence the publications concerned.
John Hartigan, Chairman and CEO of News Limited, doesn't walk away from the technological challenge but insists that media must continue to focus upon essential qualities and capacities. He argues: "There's a lot of talk about technology. But in my opinion the key is still about the quality of our journalism: whether it's delivered in print, online, on a mobile, with video, audio, or by other means. In my 40-plus years in this industry, I can honestly say there has never been a more exciting time for journalism. The social function and value of quality journalism is even more important today than it was.
"Why? Today, audiences have many more choices about who they turn to for news, information and entertainment. Newspapers have to do more to cut through the clutter."
Sydney is, of course, a newspaper town. It is served by two national dailies in the Australian Financial Review (Fairfax) and the Australian (News); as well as two local publications, the tabloid Daily Telegraph (News) and the broadsheet Sydney Morning Herald (Fairfax). Moreover, the regions of Greater Sydney are served by established suburban publications such as the Manly Daily on the peninsula of the Northern Beaches, or the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader for Southern Sydney. Add to this the commuter publication MX, published by News, and consumers are offered a great diversity of content.
And it's true that major papers do set and reset political and business agendas. Radio continues to be a substantial force, but television, unlike in the United States, has lost its dominant role.
Some years ago the Australian advertising industry ran a campaign to defend itself from its critics. Showing a family sitting in poverty of Eastern European proportions, the campaign theme was: "In some countries people don't have advertising to bother them." The clear message was that advertising is a vital element in material well-being.
This may or may not be so, depending upon your perspective, but what is beyond doubt is that the Australian newspaper industry has determined that rather than let growth in the internet and other delivery platforms simply shape print media's future, the publishing houses are going to engage with advertisers and consumers. They will argue forcefully that there is still very real value in the placement of content in the broadsheets and tabloids which characterise Australia's newspaper sector.
If The Newspaper Works campaign proves as innovative as is being suggested, it may actually define a new benchmark in responses to new media. And the battle for eyeballs might see a little more of that advertising, which still annoys us, appear in print.
* Stephen Loosley, a former federal president of the Labor Party and Australian senator, chairs business advocacy group Committee for Sydney.
