The BBC’s mobile app strategy, announced last week at the Mobile World Congress has quickly been attacked by the Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA). The issue they have is that the BBC will have a detrimental effect on the aspirations of the commercial sector for quality journalism. This comes just a few months after News Corporation launched an attack on the BBC, suggesting that the BBC’s state sponsored journalism was “threatening the plurality and independence of news provision”.
Both the NPA and News Corporation suggest that the BBC’s ability to deliver quality news content without having had to make any commercial investment puts the commercial sector for news and journalism at a disadvantage.
For their part, the BBC contends that all they are doing is delivering their content to the widest possible audience. Mobile apps are merely an extension of existing digital channels and supporting them is in line with their overall remit.
The Real Issue For Newspaper Publishers Is Not The BBC
Newspapers like any business need to make a profit. Their revenues have always been a combination of sales from circulation and ad revenues. Ad revenues need not be news related. The ads that they carry are merely a view of what the audience reading their publications might be interested in. Over the last decade the growth in use of digital media and change in reader habits has had a corrosive effect on both of these revenue streams. In particular:
- The number of free (ad sponsored) and paid for publications has increased
- There has been a proliferation of TV and on-line channels carrying news and advertising
- Readers pull the most up-to-date content from their preferred sources when they want it and have become used to getting most of what they want free of charge
- Advertisers seeking a better ROI have moved budgets from print to digital where direct marketing is easier to deliver and measure
The BBC did not instigate these changes nor does it drive them. Technology and consumer habits do. Publishers have just been slow to respond. Now, at a time when they need to act fast and decisively with respect to making their business models more relevant, mobile as an additional channel for accessing and receiving content has become more important to many groups of readers, especially the Millennial Generation who will form the bedrock of many publishers future customer base. This has added to the complexity of issues that publishers have to deal with and accelerated the pace at which they need to respond. However, identifying and implementing appropriate strategies continues to be slow and by sticking with the current business models publishers are guaranteeing the possibly terminal, but definitely irreversible revenue declines.
More Time Required To Transition To New Business Models
Whilst many NPA members have already embraced mobile technology, the traffic that they have been able to attract is substantially below what the BBC, with its global presence has been able to attract. Furthermore, revenues that they can generate from their efforts are limited and do not cover declining revenues elsewhere.
So although the NPA has a problem with the overall situation their comments only focus on a part of what the BBC does – provision of news. It does not take into account any of the other issues that are contributing to the demise of their member’s ability to provide news content in a commercially viable way. The stance that the NPA are taking, at least in public, of attacking the BBC’s plans for mobile apps is really a call for a “time out”. Since they can not possibly want to return to the old business models they must want time to figure out what the Millennial Generation want, how to provide it and how to generate sustainable revenues.
What Should The NPA Be Doing?
Whilst multi-sectioned publications either printed or online are very much the mainstay of many newspaper publishers, a reduced volume of highly relevant, current and sharable content is what characterises the Millennial Generation’s requirements. Publishers just need to figure out a way to deliver against these parameters and all could be well again.
To do this they will need to understand the paying customer more completely which is exactly what direct marketers and in particular mobile marketers are attempting to unravel. It requires a degree of customer profiling that that publishers who essentially have a mass media delivery model do not do. Understanding how customers’ requirements for news and information changes over time and how these might be affected by real world events for example would enable publishers to generate and make available more targeted bundles of information. If this can be truly differentiated from the generally available content, they could charge a premium.
This approach needs to be supported by the adoption of content delivery technology, payment and subscription models that enables publishers to:
- Transition from publication wide subscriptions models to a per article model
- improve relevancy and personalisation at a per reader level
- Provide a mechanism that allows readers to select and bundle the own content even if it requires integrating content from competing publications
- Present content in the format that that each reader wants whether that is mobile internet, mobile apps, on-line, email or even glossy print
- Provide the same content either ad free or ad sponsored
A View Of The Future
It is not all doom and gloom for publishers. The magazine consortium created by Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst and Time Inc. that are aiming to build a viable digital newsstand provides an example of what alternative approaches the NPA might consider recommending for its’ members even whilst they continue to lobby the BBC Trust and Ministers at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to stop the BBC’s intrusion into mobile and all things digital.
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