Traditional Media Not Going Away: Why Radio, TV & Print Will Survive The Rise of the Internet
With over three decades of experience in marketing and PR, in the last few years I have been awed and excited by the new opportunities afforded by the Internet. The explosion of Internet applications, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, to name a few, has shifted and expanded the world of marketing and PR, and it will never be the same.
But, don’t expect the traditional media—newspapers, radio and TV—to disappear any time soon. Those who predict the death of traditional media could not be more wrong! In truth, the only really successful marketing campaigns must now embrace ALL media avenues, both offline (traditional) and online.
Irish playwright Eugene O’Neil once wrote, “There is no present or future, only the past happening over and over again—now.” That is what is happening with radio and, in fact, with all other traditional media now being thrown into the dead pool because of the rise of the Internet. In fact, the death of radio has been predicted on numerous occasions with the advent of 8-track cartridges, MTV, satellite broadcasting and the Internet…experts have claimed each would make radio obsolete or irrelevant.
We once used radio for everything. Then came television, and it was predicted by “well-informed people” that not only would radio die, but so would the movies!
But radio and movies are still here. Instead of dying, radio evolved and found a new niche. It would never again be the center of our living rooms, where families would gather to be entertained and informed, but it would survive as a music medium. Today, radio is as strong as ever— and even with a huge growth in the talk radio landscape!
And let’s talk about print. When the Seattle Post-Intelligencer scrapped its print edition in favor of an online-only version, people began predicting the same death of the print medium. But, in fact, the traditional print medium is thriving. Just as radio reinvented itself after the dawn of television, so has print in the age of the Internet. The print medium’s primary strength—beat reporters—still exists and their articles are printed in traditional publications AND are also posted on the Internet!
And I suppose that’s my point. As marketing gurus talk up the importance of social media marketing, search engine optimization, strong Web sites, blogging and other Internet-centered activities, we can’t omit traditional media from our marketing and PR strategy. People still listen to radio. People still watch TV. People still read print publications (both offline AND online). They are STILL the media, and they are NOT on life support.
Traditional media should still be the backbone of your efforts, but MUST be combined with online marketing and PR for maximum exposure. If you don’t cover all the bases, you will have missed the terrific cross-marketing opportunities enjoyed by savvy marketers who’ve embraced the synergy of a campaign that combines offline and online strategies!
Tell me which print product is thriving? I worked as a reporter 26 years. I know that business inside and out.
None of them are thriving now. Newspapers are being strangled by Craig’s List. What most people outside the business don’t realize that classified advertising provided about half the net revenue for newspapers. When Craig’s List came along, that revenue stream dried up. And when it did, print news started to shrink.
Not one newspaper or magazine gained circulation in 2009. In fact, the best of any of them did was stay even. Most got smaller, which led to layoffs and a shrinking newshole. As a Harvard Business School study indicated, newspapers as a product have diminished to the point where consumers don’t see a reason to buy them.
Magazines are dying right and left. Editor and Publisher – the bible of the newspaper industry for over a century – just closed. The last numbers I saw were 70 magazines closed in 2009. How many opened?
The most desirable demographic – 18- to -35-year-olds simply do not read printed material like other generations. They are much more Internet-oriented.
Yes, television viewership is doing well. But not advertising viewership. DVRs are killing that medium, Here’s a little exercise you can do. As some friends to name their favorite commercial. About half won’t have one. Another quarter will remember the commercial, but not the product. And about the last quarter will like the commercial, but wouldn’t buy the product based on that commercial.
I want to see some hard numbers for your statement that traditional is a viable medium for marketing.
Hi Marsha,
Nice article. Guess it’s always the same stuff with the media. How many predicted Yahoo or Amazon wouldn’t survive; or the browser war between Explorer and Netscape, and there you have it back again.
Hi Jeff,
I think it’s important to differentiate between newspapers and print publications ability to mak e a profit, and being a good venue for PR. Those are two different concepts, and one does not have an impact on the other. On the surface, your argument is logical, because if there are fewer print publications, then there are fewer outlets for PR. But, we need to take into account the way the Internet uses the mainstream medium. A new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism uncovered what I had already suspected. Specifically, the study stated that most of the articles people read online contain no real reporting. Translated, that means it’s been copied and pasted from a legitimate news source’s feed. The study tracked news in Baltimore, Maryland for a week, and examined both print newspapers and online outlets, and discovered that 8 out of the 10 articles published online about a topic in the news were simply repackaged from the newspaper’s story. We see it all the time. My Senior Campaign Strategist, also a former newspaperman like yourself, reads two newspapers every day as well as the online feeds throughout the day. Invariably, he sees the results from that study on a daily basis. So, if a print newspaper repurposes its content online, it’s likely that their story will be repackaged and repeated across a wide variety of Web sites once it hits. For the marketer, the sad story of plummeting newspaper circulation and profits – while tragic – should not have an impact on their campaign strategy. Beat reporters from major news outlets STILL break stories, and their papers and magazines will run them and repurpose them online. The rest of the bloggers and online news sites will then either reference, repackage or flat out republish those stories, increasing circulation of the story to many dozens of times the reach of the original newspaper that ran it. Does this hurt the newspaper business? Absolutely. Does it madden me? Yes. But as a caretaker of the best interests of my clients, it is not in my best interest to challenge it – that’s for the newspapers’ attorneys to do. Rather, as long as these conditions exist, it is in my best interest to take advantage of the practice for the benefit of my clients.