Kress News Agency, Germany
Kress News Agency, Germany
By Torsten Zarges,
February. 2013
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1. In your eyes, what are the most important requirements good business papers and magazines have to meet today?
Business publishers must understand the crossover. Readers are crossing over from the old print-only world to the crazy-quilt hybrid print/digital (and then digital/print) world we’re now in the midst. That means a multi-platform product and pricing strategy that fits these changing patterns of usage. That means making it easy for readers to use each platform, including print, for what it is best at doing. Data, news alerts and longer-form explainers each more naturally fit better in some places than others. Technologies that recognized that each individually in the course of a day is constantly moving from one platform to another (see the Google/Ipsos Cross-Screens study, instructive here) are essential. Now, the New York Times ports stories read/stories functions on all its digital platforms, for instance. That’s just the beginning of making news experience, and business news experience, increasingly seamless.
2. How do you think their future will look like? Which role will printed paper play in it?
Yes, but 2020 is digital/print where 2005 was print/digital. We’re in the midst of this crossover — in ad spending, in mobile usage, in reader revenue, and in other related media from books to music. Print is fast becoming the niche, with digital the mass. The Sunday paper in the US, for instance, is a niche, but a hugely important one. Niche specialty print, sometimes reader-paid, sometimes-sponsored will continue to find strong markets, in monthly, annual and special forms.
3. Can you please name a business paper or magazine that has already managed its transformation into digital exceptionally well? What exactly have they done better than the others?
The Financial Times is the gold standard of print-to-digital transformation. In its audience understanding (via the early harnessing of analytics) to its All-Access reader pricing to its enterprise licensing and to its now truly global reach, with ad sales to match, it is a model well worth studying by any business publisher. It is now well set up to be a profitable, most digital publishing company.
4. European publishers are debating a lot about which paid content solution will turn out the best, especially ‘freemium’ vs. ‘metered paywall’. What is your opinion on that?
Both models can work, if well done. The meter, well-deployed, puts the choice where it best belongs – in consumer hands. It also enables the publishers to really understand consumer preference – it’s data – and how to act on it. The key to any successful paid system is a sufficient volume of highly differentiated, if not unique, content. Start with that value and either system can be made to work.
5. How do journalists – especially business journalists – have to adapt to tomorrow’s media consumption habits?
It amounts to mastering the basics we’ve seen as floating concepts through our world over the last five years: social referral of stories, quick-bite mobile usage, engaging readers in interactive data and other empowering tools, matching the storytelling to the medium. We’ve begun to understand these as concepts. Now the goal is to practice them well.