Content Bridges

Seriously, I wonder how much the Gumbo-like turns of circulation accounting will matter to ad buyers. Increasingly, across all media buying, they are focused on audience. They want to know who (gender, age, household status, region, clickstream behavior, recent buying behavior and more) and they want to target these on the fly, as the world turns, spinning ever more quickly. So audience targeting is getting to be instantaneous; a 20th of a second is what we hear it takes.

So Gannett’s decided that it’s go-it-alone, devise-its own-local-marketing strategies approach didn’t work.

Thinking about the recent terminations at the Washington Post and CNN, though, I wonder if the press priesthood is still another cultural institution in the process of being swept away, encumbered as much as it has by habit as by principle.

Are we beginning to see the Last Man Standing strategy play out in the U.S.’s biggest cities? The New York Times is planning on building out 10-15 regional editions, on the model of its Chicago (partnered with the Chicago News Cooperative) and Bay Area (partnered with Bay Area Citizen) models. Now the Wall Street Journal is renewing its previously announced regional forays, into Chicago, L.A. and perhaps other places. WSJ CEO Les Hinton noted this week that “we’ve done focus groups and see a growing antipathy among high-end readers, towards what’s happened to their local newspapers.” One publisher’s nightmare is another’s opportunity.

For Yahoo, I think, it’s simple arithmetic. If you’ve figured out how to monetize content better than the other guys — remember Yahoo Newspaper Consortium members say they can mark up $8 CPMs to $15 and beyond, courtesy of Yahoo’s behavioral targeting technology — why not do it against content you own. With the Associated purchase, it now will own the 2.1 million articles in the database, with another 2000 coming in every day, and it can sell advertising directly against those articles, without having to do any margin-draining revenue shares.

Philly’s next re-do — maybe it will catch the recovery wind at its back this time — won’t happen in isolation. Down the road, in D.C., it’ll be able to watch Allbritton’s TBD start-up experiment, beginning in June. The first lesson: Figuring out how to serve substantial top-flight journalism and the commerce that accompanies it is no longer just the province of newspaper companies trying to figure out their next act.

Key: The ability to create new value in the short term with the infusion of new leadership and new thinking. This is the key that unlocks the value Angelo Gordon believes is hidden in the encrusted legacies of these print properties. Of course, that’s in its private equity DNA: bring in people with new eyes, who aren’t burdened with too much custom and habit.

The magic word here from a business perspective: Roll-up. Whoever figures out how to roll up major audiences and monetize them wins. J-Lab’s report holds out hope that may come about somewhat organically. History, though, teaches us that it’s more likely to come by dint of more singular zeal.

Clearly, the Journal is trying to anticipate success here — that’s clearly what’s behind what some have derided as a high iPad only $17.29 monthly sub fee. Of course, that could be a good problem to have. Tablets, with good subscription price points, potentially lucrative ad rates and low (compared to print) costs of production and distribution, may be the building block of the digital-first news business.

I think we’ll see these companies go head-to-head for reader and subscriber dollars. As they do, I think they’ll face a new five-fingered exercise. Raise one hand; five is the probably the maximum number of iPad news sites for which readers will pay.