Friday 7 August 2009

Advertising falls through the floor, media companies look to make money from content – T360 has the answer

Hello and Happy Friday! Three very important things happened this week. Firstly, the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster ITV posted a massive £11million loss for the first half of the year. That’s better than the same time in 2008, but is still a horrible reminder of how tough the advertising market is out there.

The second monumental thing comes on the coat tails of another loss: at mighty News International. Murdoch’s publishing empire made a loss, too, because the bottom has dropped out of the display ad markets around the world. The move has prompted Rupert to bare (geddit?) all and go head long into charging for news content through new channels.

These two things are linked by more than just the fact that advertising isn’t dong so well in the ‘old’ media. In fact these two losses exemplify how the old world is being hammered by the new and how something really has to be done to drag the old media into the 20th Century – if we can find a way to make it make money while remaining attractive to consumers.

Murdoch’s desire to charge for content has long been mooted, but this year’s losses have cemented the plan in his mind. Like most media outlets, News International used the internet as a free channel from day one. Now it, and everyone else, is ruing that decision.

The Financial Times has always charged for content and is, while not growing, makes money from it’s online content and is accepted as a paid for site. The others aren’t.

And therein lies the rub. Consumers want their media content free online. Moving from this expectation to a paid-for model is going to be hard. Murdoch rightly believes that his company’s content is of high value and costs a lot to produce, so why give it away for free. TV companies are in the same position. And these days, apart from the novelty of mobile, ad-funding is looking like a busted flush.

Micro-billing for things – I mean the order of cents – is one options. Combining this with being able to earn from UGC posting in cents too is another. But how can that be brought to bear on the likes of ITV, News International, and other massive mainstream media outlets? And will consumers buy it?

The answer is to look at how the telemedia industry monetises services and how that can be applied to media content.

Which brings us to the third important thing to happen this week: the launch of the Telemedia 360 event, which is taking place on 21 October in Liverpool. The event aims to bring together the media – print, TV, online, everyone – and show them how, through innovative billing, innovating services, and the power of the mobile web, they can start to look at monetising their content and using new channels to market profitably.

Running in conjunction with the International News Media Association (INMA) and the Online Publishing Association (OPA)’s annual European conference on the 22 and 23 October, Telemedia 360 is open to all their delegates, as well as our own and looks set to be the place that the media industry and the telemedia industry can get together to mutual benefit in these tough times.

Of course there are more details to come, and they will be up here in due course. But for now, check out the brochure online here and do drop us a line if you want to take part.

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