Speaking at Polis The Guardian’s Emily Bell warned of ‘carnage’ over the next two years for the British media industry. Five national newspapers could go and the BBC could be left as the only British-woned broadcaster. She said it was a ‘worst case scenario’ but the evidence comes in daily that the recession will hit newspapers and TV when it really hurts – just while they are adjusting to all the other changes from new technology and changing audience behaviour. Here are today’s canaries in the coal mine.
- Free newspapers are laying people off
- Ofcom warns BBC that it may lose funding to support other broadcasters
- Local radio group goes bust
- 1000 jobs to go at Yahoo!
- Hyperlocal ‘can’t make money’ warns community website
Do I need to go on?
Is this the only thing that can cheer me up?
Yep for someone hoping to enter the industry in little more than 9 months the endless bad news is rather disheartening Charlie.
The hyperlocal article is interesting,it almost summarises the position that the media are in.Plenty of opportunity based on new platforms but non of them cost effective
And to top it all off: Burn After Reading was an immense let down… and the new Macbook Pro released this week is not that great.
Where will all of this stop?????
I suppose a clever person — not me — could have seen it coming: All these universities pumping out media studies graduates… and the lion’s share of the funding comes from an unpopular and shaky-looking state tax. Meanwhile, on the commercial side of the business, a bit of the tall poppy syndrome (Ofcom going after Sky) combined with paternalistic regulation (junk food advertising) is probably not helping either.
I’ve always thought the industry needed better leaders — it seems like all those people have migrated over to the IT or new media. The people left in broadcasting all seem to look to Ofcom for leadership.
I questioned Emily Bell’s assessment on my blog the other day, positing that these newspapers will not die, but rather technological innovation, reader loyalty and interest in getting quality news from a reliable source will prevent their doors from shutting.
Many newspapers will adopt the model of the Huffington Post – a completely online e-news format. In fact, today the New York Times has an article about the Christian Science Monitor, a century old publication, ending its daily print edition and appear online only. I believe you will see more and more newspapers opt for this format in the near future, rather than completely ‘dying’ as Bell posits.