Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

talkingpointsmemo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 102 posts

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#41

Post by reaperducer »

Jaruzel wrote: post #7

Relevant... I got told a few days ago that: "Buzzfeed writers have to generate at least 1 article per day. There is no minimum limit on words on the article, and the topic can be anything (within reason)." Once I knew this, the prevalence of low-quality Buzzfeed links all over the web suddenly made sense.

One per day? I had someone at one of Vox's regional properties tell me they had to do 12 a day (combination of local and national)!

One per day seems pretty light. TV reporters in medium and small markets are usually required to turn out two a day (one package, one VOSOT). Radio reporters sometimes five or six or more, depending on market size and whether they're unionized.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#42

Post by davidwitt415 »

Josh Marshall is well qualified on this subject, and is walking the walk with TPM by pushing it towards a subscription model, and away from too much dependency on ad revenue. (He has previously published insightful posts on the dangers of relying on Google and FB, and their capricious business practices).

In a larger way, this is an indictment/logical endpoint of the 'free' business model. You still get what you pay for. Imo, it's too bad micropayments haven't taken off, but i'm glad there is some traction in paid models. Perhaps things really need to get shitty with free content (ahem, autoplay video) before there is a correction towards quality content. Of course, that presents it's own problems since those too poor/cheap to pay for content will remain in the ad infested content mills.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#43

Post by mooreds »

soared wrote: post #32

Everyone not in the ad industry loves to make claims about how its going to fall apart, but no one I've seen has the expertise and data needed to back up their claims. Maybe the author has a point, but this article is incoherent. There is no sources and the entirety is predicated on baseless assumptions and some analogy. No sources or even attempt to prove any claims: - There are too many publishers - There is a fixe…

Here's something with a bit more detail about how the author has approached the revenue issue: http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/07/with-11000-subscribers-talk...

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#44

Post by curun1r »

bkeroack wrote: post #26
curun1r wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps one of the reasons that a lot of the struggling media outlets are on the progressive end of the spectrum is that they mostly need to be profitable through advertising whereas the conservative side can be run at a loss while their backers recoup their investments through deregulation and tax cuts. If someone could figure out a similar way to profit from Democratic government, that could solve most of the fundi…

> they mostly need to be profitable through advertising whereas the conservative side can be run at a loss while their backers recoup their investments through deregulation and tax cuts This is insane. Show me one conservative-leaning media startup that was saved (or turned profitable!) through "deregulation and tax cuts" without reliance on other streams of revenue. Unless you somehow mean that a better, faster-grow…

> Show me one conservative-leaning media startup that was saved (or turned profitable!) through "deregulation and tax cuts" without reliance on other streams of revenue

How about two:

https://franklincenterhq.org

https://www.watchdog.org

Notice the complete lack of advertising. It's unlikely that either of these two has much of a revenue stream beyond being funded by the Koch brothers. But Koch industries has made billions being one of the largest polluters in the world. Relaxing EPA guidelines on pollution is a huge business for them. So there's no need for either of those two media outlets to ever make a dime on its own, it just has to provide assistance for Republican politicians who are friendly to their environmental agenda.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#45

Post by soared »

jacobolus wrote: post #37
soared wrote: post #32

Everyone not in the ad industry loves to make claims about how its going to fall apart, but no one I've seen has the expertise and data needed to back up their claims. Maybe the author has a point, but this article is incoherent. There is no sources and the entirety is predicated on baseless assumptions and some analogy. No sources or even attempt to prove any claims: - There are too many publishers - There is a fixe…

The author is a career journalist/digital publisher with lots of professional contacts in the industry. He has spent lots of time investigating digital media business models and the financial health of digital media companies. His own company has transitioned from being mostly ad supported to being mostly directly reader supported in the past few years. He is just making a blog observation, which can be best read in…

Eh I guess without any context then its not a very useful blog post. I'd still like to see some links or an attempt at verifying some claims. Even a byline with his industry experience would help.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#46

Post by soared »

mooreds wrote: post #43
soared wrote: post #32

Everyone not in the ad industry loves to make claims about how its going to fall apart, but no one I've seen has the expertise and data needed to back up their claims. Maybe the author has a point, but this article is incoherent. There is no sources and the entirety is predicated on baseless assumptions and some analogy. No sources or even attempt to prove any claims: - There are too many publishers - There is a fixe…

Here's something with a bit more detail about how the author has approached the revenue issue: http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/07/with-11000-subscribers-talk...

I'll add it to my reading list, thanks. Although this is the most overused fucking trope in digital media:

> “The idea of publications totally based on advertising is, I think, an illusion. Some can do it, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be a sustainable model for most publications.”

Like TV and radio never even existed.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#47

Post by mrj »

barrkel wrote: post #27

The "pivot to video" would explain why every third article I click from outside my usual haunts has an auto-play video at the top that follows me as I scroll down the page. I've reached my limit; I've started blocking video CDNs with my adblocker. If there's a video I really want to watch, I'll use a different browser.

You can disable html5 auto play with Firefox. It's a godsend.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#48

Post by FussyZeus »

soared wrote: post #32

Everyone not in the ad industry loves to make claims about how its going to fall apart, but no one I've seen has the expertise and data needed to back up their claims. Maybe the author has a point, but this article is incoherent. There is no sources and the entirety is predicated on baseless assumptions and some analogy. No sources or even attempt to prove any claims: - There are too many publishers - There is a fixe…

> Everyone not in the ad industry loves to make claims about how its going to fall apart, but no one I've seen has the expertise and data needed to back up their claims.

That doesn't mean they are wrong. Frankly it fits in neatly with the theory that such data is not data that ad companies want to know, so therefore, they don't.

There is an overwhelming consensus by a huge number of very well informed and intelligent people pointing to the advertising business model as it exists now and saying, "This is not sustainable." I'm not saying they're right, I'm not qualified to say that, but the response from the ad industry is by and large to stick their fingers in their ears and hum loudly and that should make any potential investor worry.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#49

Post by brokentone »

soared wrote: post #45
jacobolus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is a career journalist/digital publisher with lots of professional contacts in the industry. He has spent lots of time investigating digital media business models and the financial health of digital media companies. His own company has transitioned from being mostly ad supported to being mostly directly reader supported in the past few years. He is just making a blog observation, which can be best read in…

Eh I guess without any context then its not a very useful blog post. I'd still like to see some links or an attempt at verifying some claims. Even a byline with his industry experience would help.

It's posted on TPM on the "Editor's Blog" and the byline says "Josh Marshall is editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com." what else do you need on his credentials?

There are links scattered throughout, but part of the point of this post is that no one is really talking about this issue at least at the depth it deserves, so understandably it's light on references. In this case, I'd treat a lot of this as an original source.

Re: There’s a Digital Media Crash, But No One Will Say It

#50

Post by zzzeek »

soared wrote: post #46
mooreds wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's something with a bit more detail about how the author has approached the revenue issue: http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/07/with-11000-subscribers-talk...

I'll add it to my reading list, thanks. Although this is the most overused fucking trope in digital media: > “The idea of publications totally based on advertising is, I think, an illusion. Some can do it, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be a sustainable model for most publications.” Like TV and radio never even existed.

I have to pay for my TV and radio these days ?
Post reply on HN