local media insider

A new normal? Few tears, more gloating at the Key Executives Mega-Conference

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At the Key Executives Mega-Conference last week, several publishers came forward with cleverly rendered new approaches to emerging models.

Schurz Media's email initiative provides a simple, overlooked source of.... drum roll please... banner advertising revenues. The most active Schurz markets are selling around $30,000 of ads on emails, even with very small, but targeted databases. The idea is that 150 people, who are, say interested in buying a home, are an easy upsell that realtors understand. Stay tuned for our case study on this in the weeks ahead. 

This week's case study looks at Kelsey Square Communications, a new inhouse agency created at Holden Landmark Company, a group of four weeklies and a monthly in Worcester, Massachusetts and a few surrounding communities. This initiative is unique – and, we think, smart - in that it employs no additional staff but takes advantage of  the opportunity to sell PR and graphic services, as well as a few newly minted ones.

And finally, Joe Boydston, VP/technology and new media at McNaughton Newspaper Group in Frairchild, Ca. caused a stir after showing how his newspapers are produced entirely on WordPress, including a system that requires editors to Tweet all stories as the final step in editing, and before they go online, and the formation of newspaperfoundation.org, an organization dedicated to helping newspapers convert to open source technology.

Also in the spotlight at the conference is the  huge potential of seasonal deal stores. Grouping better deals around the right seasons and running them longer, rather than a fixed 365 day schedule, just makes economic sense. Ongoing deal stores, in the case of Shaw Media, are smartly paired with a weekly Big Deal, run on the standard time-limited model.

Also evolving quickly are mobile advertising sales, though it is clear that print companies have fallen far behind television in building and  selling mobile products.

But aside from these gems, the most interesting development at the conference may have been The Mood.

"People are being secure and ok with the balance print and digital, and with print re-engineering and finding a new normal."

Thus sayeth Gareth Charter, Publisher of Holden Landmark Corp., the presenter whose inhouse agency is featured here. Charter is also a board member of the Local Media Association (renamed from Suburban Newspaper Association, and with a logo curiously similar to this site's) which produced the conference in conjunction with Inland Press Association,  SNPA and TPA (Texas Press Association). 

Keynote speaker, Kirk Davis, President and COO of Gatehouse Communications, hit a home run by simply restating his commitment to print as 50% of the puzzle, before launching into a discussion of its new digital services department and how to seize control of CPM's from ad networks; an almost audible sigh of relief flooded the ballroom... 50%. Not dead.

Publishers were enthusiastic that the "redirecting" of resources forced on some companies is helping the industry redefine “what is local” and  even “what is media,” while freeing resources to invest in faster growing digital audiences and revenue streams. 

Several groups of small papers commented during sessions that they are centralizing everything “behind the scenes,” including the copy desks, while leaving the “high touch” staff in place to keep local relationships and appearances intact.

In any event, there is a growing consensus that  JRC and the SunTimes,  may have  "taken the beach" by doing the "tough stuff" of shrinking companies by 60 to 70%, in the case of Sun Times,  of the former head-count, basically showing how it can be done.

(A notable hold-out against this  popular strategy is David Black, president and CEO of Black Press, who defended his print-centric organization, conceding only that "a little diversification is always a good thing," possibly the understatement of the decade).

It was surprising to see excitement around what used to be considered frantic rounds of down-sizing. The Sun Times presentation was called "MediaMorphosis," perhaps a smidge too idyllically by (now former) president and COO of the SunTimes, Rick Surkamer, who keeps a screenshot of a butterfly on his smart phone, capturing The Mood. 

Outsourcing does provide a path towards a sustainable business model that retains local sex appeal. You can make an argument that writers and reps, considered by the Sun Times as core assets, are, theoretically, more valuable in the new company than before, at least relative to other positions, if not, say, to prior levels of pay. 

As the advent of computers once changed the very idea of what intelligence is - from the ability to multiply stuff in your head, to something more meaningful -  so, too,  is the internet shifting the definition of what is media, giving it a higher calling than airwaves and paper, which are, after all, only distribution.  

Publishers also seemed more comfortable with the new business models.

”There are not as many people scratching their heads,” said an owner who attended with three other working family members. 

Many thanks to the event organizers; the combined conference is a good idea: More people, ideas, technology partners with less travel time is always welcome.