Chewing on media’s next wave

Jon Friedman talks about the early going at Food Network Magazine in his Marketwatch Media Web column, and offers that it may be a model for magazine publishing going forward. Friedman ticks off a few other examples – Martha Stewart, obviously, and Rachael Ray and ESPN Magazine. I’m not really sure, however, that launching line extensions is really new or different in the media world, as his own examples document. National Geographic has done pretty well going the other way, from magazine to television. Also, TV Guide. Likewise, the Saturday morning outdoor blocks on television – all the fishing and hunting programs – were largely the initiative of outdoor magazine people, notably George Bell. Accordingly, does Food Network Magazine represent “media’s next wave?”

Probably not, but that doesn’t mean that Jon Friedman is missing the point. Leveraging media brands across platforms is standard trade craft; leveraging media bands to create media networks is where it goes next, which is actually something Food Network has been working on online over the past few years. The “Food Network Family” is inclusive of Healthy Eats, Recipezaar.com, Food2 and others. Food Network is becoming a network in a complete sense of the word, sharing the strength of the brand not just across platforms, but across complimentary properties – properities independent from Food Network’s editors.

Do people call this curating? Curating is maybe media’s next wave. Hearst – which publishes Food Network Magazine – curates magazines. Food Network is curating - by partnership and through acquistions - a food and living lifestyle, which needs no boundaries.

Saving newspapers: Less is more, part 2

More about how to save newspapers today in Jon Freidman’s Marketwatch column. Pundits Larry Kramer, Laura Rich Fine and Nathan Richardson, all credentialed new media-types, argue collectively that newspapers need to have the gumption to charge readers for their products. Historically, they have not had that gumption. This is true. But, what should they charge? Today it is a token. If it is to be financially relevant to the business it means the cost of a newspaper will skyrocket. And/or, the newspaper product will shrink to fit a cost that is perhaps only modestly more than what people pay now. I paid $2.00 for the Wall Street Journal yesterday in the Boston airport. The New York Times, delivered free to my hotel room do0r this morning, has a cover price of $1.50. It is four sections and 90 pages deep, which just has to be (ridicuously) expensive. What could we expect if these properties assigned a more realistic price to their daily products, one that covered all the costs of ink and paper and distribution, for instance? $4.00? $5.00? $10?

One thing that would drop as a result of a price increase is the free hotel distribution, which can add up to a substantial portion of a newspaper’s daily circulation. But the fear – and reality – has always been, of course, that raising newstand prices on newspapers would cause the circulation to crumble, which would starve the advertising side. Okay, but so what? Newspapers need to act very quickly to find their core audience – that constituency that will pay almost any price for the product. A pack of cigarettes today, I am informed, costs over $10. Plenty of people still smoke. It’s helps that cigarettes are addicting, but so are newspapers to some. A small, deeply dedicated audience is a marketers dream – or ought to be. If they want to charge more, newspapers need to retreat to within those dedicated audience boundaries and make a big deal to advertisers of the fact that people are willing to pay a lot for the privilege of receiving their newspaper.

Or not. Michael Kinsley, writing a couple of weeks ago in the Washington Post, talked about life after newspapers arguing that, sad as it may be, their time may have come and gone. Quoting Joseph Shumpeter he wrote, ”Capitalism is a ‘perennial gale of creative destruction.’ Industries come and go.” Newspapers, he suggests - not unreasonably - are in the “go” part of the cycle.

Yes, but there are vital lessons in the plight of newspapers for all media, including online. The conditions of newspapers, after all, have been wrought by the same media intelligentsia that has dominated online. Their thoughts and actions online have been driven by the sames thoughts and actions that drove newspapers (and magazines and television) for years: a desire for too much audience.

Which leads us back to comments made in this space earlier this week: less is more.

HuffingtonPost.com Makes it to the Front Row

Jon Freidman’s Media Web column today on MarketWatch was the first I heard about President Obama inviting a question from Huffington Post reporter, Sam Stein, at his recent press conference. Freidman suggests the act was enough to ruffle a few main stream media feathers. How great is that? Tra La. Can’t you picture the President pointing over all the other waving hands and saying “Sam,” and imagine the New York Times and CBS reporters and everyone else in the front rows dropping their hands and turning around to look. ”Sam? What Sam? Sam Donaldson?”

Nope.  Sam from HuffingtonPost – dot – freakin’ – com.

But, I exaggerate because, of course, Sam Stein is formerly of Newsweek and the New York Daily News and is probably chums with most everyone in the Washington Press Corp and may even have been in the front row laughing it up with his buddies. The point to make is that evidently a moment occurred at the President’s press conference that helped authenticate the blogosphere, thereby new media, thereby those of us that labor in support of its proposition: down with media tyranny; power to the people.

(Sigh.) Now, suddenly, I’m thinking of those old playground days and the sweet, sadly gratifying experience of being invited by the playground’s cool people to join them for lunch over by the rock, wherefore to spend the 30 minute recess snickering about all the ”losers” on the field. Oh, sweet corrupting power.

Don’t do it Arianna.