The Association of Online Publishers conference is always a pleasure and the weight of this UK trade body feels more and more substantial every year—and that’s because of the increasing power of the industry itself, of course. New chairman Simon Waldman summed it up in his opening speech: “At the beginning, AOP members would come to meetings saying ‘No one in my business is interested in the internet - what should I do?’ Now it’s ‘Everyone in my business is interested in the internet- what should I do?’
Guardian Media Group CE Carolyn McCall did a bit of keynote evangelising about turning the tanker, and all the consecutive speakers seemed to agree. She compared the state of the media industry to a wrestling match - no one knows where the next punch is coming from. But competition comes from a growing number of new entrants from very big companies to absolutely minute companies that might be The Next Big Thing. “One minute these companies want to kill each other, the next minute they are working with each other” - and she points to the Google/eBay ad deal.
Washington Post and NYTimes have complained to her that sites like Flickr and Digg have had to “completely change the way that they think about their business models”. All the big new media names - Yahoo, Google, AOL - provide gateways to their content but could turn their guns at any point.
“We are all still fighting tooth and nail for our traditional businesses that still account for the majority of our profits.” She quoted ad guru Martin Sorrell as saying that the world is not going to change in terms of revenue shift until a new generation gets to board level. She didn’t say digital natives, but that was the point.
Also:
- GMG’s Trader Media group has made a successful transition from print to media and makes £120 million ($226 million) annual profit.
- Sustainable digital revenues are vital to future growth, and also for getting respect internally within the company. It’s important to say that GU is profitable. But she acknowledged that booming online ad sales and classified growth would inevitably flatten out. “We know there will be a slowdown in digital revenues so we want that to hit us from the highest possible base.”
- She pointed out the BBC’s extensive stats programme - which is a feature for users as much as a useful insight to the BBC’s business.
- Software development is as important as journalism to the future of the business.
- It has become essential for publishers to use their brands to turn passive audiences into active communities. It’s really, really hard but necessary if you want to be trusted and viable in ten years’ time.
- “None of us has a divine right to success. We have to lose money to make money in the future, and if you have a normal board with a normal mindset that’s a difficult transition to make. But digital revenues are what the future will have to be made up of.”