Back to the Future

On Monday the Australian Financial Review had an article about analysts predicting a decrease in advertising spend for 2009. According to a table I managed to snatch a glance at all media are going to suffer a reduction in spend except for On-line and Pay TV. Tends to make a pretty clear suggestion about where the eyeballs are – or where they think they are going to be.

Unfortunately there was no analysis about what the On-line spending would consist of, I’m sure they’re just thinking banner ads and more banner ads* as Social Media spending is probably not on the Fin Reviews radar yet. I say that because what happened when I tried to find the article later suggests that the Fin Review may be struggling to come to grips with changes in the on-line world.

The article was of great interest to me so of course I tried to look it up on-line the next day…not only was the it nigh on impossible to find anything in the Fin Review that was not TODAY when I did find other articles I wanted to look at – not download, print, or otherwise extract, just LOOK at – I was informed I would need to get a subscription.

Note to Fin Review – it’s 2008, not 1998.

The New York Times abandoned subscription content in 2007.
If Rupert reckons he can’t extract spondoolas for that content what dark secret are you harbouring to prove otherwise?

There is a fundamental reason why I think it’s a dumb approach.

Follow me here – it gets complex:

Newspapers make money from advertising.
Advertisers pay more for more eyeballs, clicks, action, whatever…just more.
Making it any harder for the reader to get your article (process, cost) means they will go elsewhere for their information (the internet is pretty good for that sort of stuff).
You now have less readers.
And less appeal for advertisers.

What happens next is pretty obvious, isn’t it?
Think you’re safe Fin Review? Bet the Chicago Tribune did too.

(Does anyone else see the irony of a newspaper reporting on a predicted decrease in newspaper advertising spend and then making it harder for a reader to see an article and the associated ads? Or is it just me?)

*And, according to the Nielsen Trust in Advertising report Oct 07,” …only consumer-generated media and branded web sites were trusted by more than half of all consumers.  Search engine and banner advertising, along  with text ads on mobile phones, each scored at the bottom  of the list with fewer than 35 percent of total respondents”.

(Photo by acidcookie)