A Sentimental Story with a Bad Ending

“It’s always like this, you understand how much a relationship really meant to you after it breaks down.” It could be a friend’s comment on your attempt to get back into a relationship with your ex, but instead it’s a merciless observation about the end of a centuries-old relationship, that between the printed press and its readership.

Whose fault was it? The publishers’, who didn’t understand that they are a relationship business.

More precisely, their business model was based on three relationships – which they all betrayed in different ways.

Let’s take look at them, one by one.

At the turn of the millennium, the first relationship to go awry was that segment of the paying public that wasn’t interested in the latest on Dubya’s war in Iraq in the newspapers, but was looking for a second-hand motorbike to buy. Or was seeking a new job, an apartment rental or a soulmate. In that moment of fording to digital, publishers did not understand that they had always had a fundamental relation with two distinct segments of the public: those who bought the newspaper to read it, and those who bought it for the personal ads. If the former chose the newspaper for its journalism, the latter chose it because there was a volume of personal ads adequate for their search. Then, with the advent of the internet micro-advertisers moved to specialized and more efficient sites, and the personal ad business collapsed, which for local newspapers could represent up to 70% of revenues. What if in addition to ferrying newspaper content online, they had also migrated the ad business? They would have certainly continued to preside over a very profitable relationship.

Between the late 2000s and the mid-2010s, a second betrayal takes place: the breakdown of the relationship with readers (those interested in the newspaper for its journalism). Access to news now increasingly occurs via social media and increasingly on mobile devices. In essence, the disconnect between the publisher and the content it produces start taking place, and now content resides everywhere. The mantra for newspapers thus becomes “we follow readers wherever they are.” And here begins the liaison dangéreuse with the new hosts of (potential) readers: digital platforms (Facebook, X, Apple, Google, etc.). First there is the era of the click: maximizing traffic from social media newspaper pages by enticing them with catchy headlines and content designed for a “social media palate.” Then comes the era of engagement: when they realize that to get at least one click on a banner it is necessary to bring more than a thousand readers to a page, publishers begin to look for alternative methods of monetization. And here the platforms make a countermove. Facebook with Instant Articles, Google with AMP, Snapchat with Discover, Apple with Apple News, develop solutions to engage readers on publishers’ content, without readers ever needing to leave the platforms. Publishers invest in social media managers, community managers and entire teams dedicated to following every single initiative proposed by each social network. While they invest, however, the platforms are changing the rules of the game. “For every five readers that Facebook sent us last year, now we get less than one” commented an executive of Slate magazine after Zuckerberg’s company decided in 2018 to change the algorithm that proposes the content of media companies.

The third relationship has gone into crisis as a direct consequence of the second breakdown: a publisher who loses contact with and does not have control of their readership is incapable of guaranteeing adequate ROI to advertising buyers. All the KPIs falter: the average duration of navigation, the number of pages visited, the number of pageviews per visitor collapse drastically. Contact with readers is now mediated by the platforms and that control has data as medium of exchange, which only the platforms collect and know how to manage.

In short, what have newspaper and magazine publishers not understood in the long and troubled transition from paper to digital? That they are a relationship business where every relationship counts. At the beginning they did not understand that the paper daily was also being purchased by those who were not interested in the news. Then they bartered the relationship with their readers for a relationship with internet platforms. And they found themselves no longer able to provide any value to the advertisers.

“Whoever is cause of their own misfortune should cry for themselves,” the wise friend above would comment. But in hindsight we are all excellent consultants.