Gannett’s Investment in Metromix Intensifies Local Entertainment Guide Competition
Important Details: The online entertainment guide business, a battleground of the ’90s, now sees a new generation of competitors emerging. That competition was emphasized by this week’s announcement that Gannett is investing in and taking on a 50% interest in the new Metromix, LLC. Metromix is no new kid on the block, having been born a decade ago as the Chicago Tribune’s entertainment site. Just last year, Tribune began exporting the model and the platform to several of its biggest properties, including Los Angeles, Baltimore, Connecticut, New York, Orlando and South Florida. Now, with Gannett’s investment, the plan is to take business into major cities across the US, covering the top 30-35 metro areas within a year. That means that Metromix will become the main entertainment site for Tribune and Gannett big-city properties, both newspaper and TV, and also that the company will seek media affiliates in cities where neither Tribune nor Gannett have properties.
Metromix has operated as both a standalone site and as the entertainment site of the ChicagoTribune.com. In expanding reach, its owners have come to understand that Metromix’s success will be based on its ability to reach non-newspaper and largely non-newspaper site users. These are users between the ages of 21 and 35, says Tim Landon, president of Tribune Interactive. Landon says an even smaller group — those between 21 and 24 — are a major target, because they’re a post-college group just forming brand preference and thus of major attractiveness to retailers, auto dealers and financial services companies. A national ad sales team of about 12 will join with local salespeople to reach those clients.
With a Gannett investment reportedly of less than $10 million, the Metromix push is being backed with a new “social playlist”-focused ad campaign, using online (search engine marketing), outdoor and transit ads in launch cities, with AdWeek magazine estimating the account to be worth $10 million. In addition, it will leverage promotion in parent print and other properties. In addition, the site will test the social networking venues of the day, including MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. A national ad sales team of about 12 will join with local salespeople to reach those clients.
Implications: Outsell believes that while it may have taken a decade, Metromix has the formula right. Its owners recognize that it is not a site for everyone, and now its success will be all about execution. That execution includes a real embrace of newer experiences now becoming mainstream and expected, especially by twentysomethings — video, interactive Google-based mapping and inclusion of user comments and ratings. A recent Metromix redesign has pushed the site in the right direction; more inventiveness will be needed to keep moving forward, especially as it is networked nationally. Such networking is always tricky — grabbing the benefits of cost-saving centralization, while allowing the local site to really be a local experience. Users know the difference between a site with local knowledge and one that just seems local. At the same time, traveling Americans would love to be able to visit a site they already know when on the road.
That execution will be hugely important as Metromix will face several kinds of competition. Yelp, a homegrown network out of San Francisco, has rapidly grown in the last couple of years, embracing a similar content and audience philosophy. Yahoo!, especially with the potential of building on its new newspaper consortium partnerships, may finally put together the pieces in the local entertainment space. Zvents, a software company enabling similar sites, has been building out sites for the New York Times Regional Media Group and for Freedom Communications. Then there’s always City Search/Ticketmaster, sites that always underwhelmed in experience, but which draw major audiences.
The new battle for the city guide user is on, and soon it will go mobile as well.
Lastly, Outsell believes that the niching of the city guide space offers a number of other potentials. Our annual News Users Study showed widespread interest in city guide information among all age groups and demographics. In addition, it’s one of the few areas in which newspapers and their online properties still dominate the GYM sites, by more than 4-1, according to our report. So targeting 21-35 is a good start, but hardly an end-all.