December 08, 2008

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Via Jack Myers: Print Media Face Staggering Challenges for the Foreseeable Future Image by gleonhard via Flickr This Huffington Post column by Jack Myers is a must-read for anyone in the 'content' business, media an publishing: Print Media Face Staggering Challenges for the Foreseeable Future. Jack is presenting some very hard-hitting stats that are worth sharing here (and that speak for themselves): "Yellow Pages will dip in 2009 below their 1998 revenues of $12.1 billion. Myers Report (www.myersreport.com) projects Yellow Pages advertising will decline 12 percent in 2009 and 6 to 10 percent in 2010" "All print media are struggling with the same reality. While some magazine publishers are moving quickly to identify and invest in alternative revenue models...the magazine industry for the most part remains dangerously dependent on traditional print advertising revenues that are eroding at a rate even more dramatic than Yellow Pages' ad revenues" "Consumer magazine ad revenues will decline 12 to 15 percent in 2008 and even more in 2009. ....the realities are that print-based media are on the decline" "Newspapers, which do not reap the benefits of high engagement scores (except among Hispanic and African-American readers), are at an even greater disadvantage. In 2001, according to Myers Report, newspaper advertising revenues were $49.2 billion. In 2010, they are projected to be only $28.5 billion, a 42% decline. Consumer magazines are projected to decline in ad revenues from more than $14 billion in 2005 to $10.3 billion in 2010..." If this is not a call for action, now, I don't know what is. I am working on a longer blog post on what I think could be done to re-invent the print media business - look for this to pop-up on your RSS feeds and Twitter feeds sometime next week. In the meantime Jack sums it up quite succinctly: "But for the print media industry as a whole,...
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Wired: 3 Major Record Labels Join the 'Choruss': Jim Griffin brings Music Like Water in 2009? One of Wired's sharpest minds, Eliot van Buskirk, reports Three Major Record Labels Join the 'Choruss'. "U.S. universities are getting a glimpse at a plan that would build a small music-royalty fee into the tuition payments they receive from students. If successful, the model — proposed by digital music strategist Jim Griffin on behalf of Warner Music Group — could be expanded to make ISPs the collector of such micropayments, eliminating some of the most irksome and contentious issues dividing the music industry and its customers...Many experts believe the original Napster represented a major opportunity for the labels to monetize file sharing in a manner similar to the way performance royalties are collected from restaurants or radio stations and avoid further alienating their customers by hauling them into court..." I am, of course, delighted to hear that this is happening, not just because Jim Griffin (now working at WMG) is an old friend and fellow digital music industry catalyst, but also because this kind of a deal - even though it is still very early and a 'covenant not to sue' is not the same thing as a real, voluntary or even compulsory blanket license - can really show the way towards solving the 'problem' of what those pesky digital natives want as far as their music consumption (better: engagement) is concerned. If anyone can do this, and work with both the major labels and the students / fans and universities, it will be Jim Griffin! Naturally, the Net is now buzzing with comments such as 'this is a music tax' and other, similar misunderstandings, so I hope to be able to join this debate in the next few weeks. A similar discussion will happen at MIDEM, one of the leading music industry conferences, in Cannes / France (January 17-21),...

Gerd Leonhard

Keynote Speaker, Think-Tank Leader, Futurist, Author & Strategist, Idea Curator, some say Iconoclast | Heretic, CEO TheFuturesAgency, Visiting Prof FDC Brazil, Green Futurist

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