Peter Vandermeersch (De Standaard) on the future of newspapers
4 March, 2009
25 minutes ago, Peter Vandermeersch, General Editor in Chief and General Director of Flemish quality newspaper De Standaard and Belgian Marketeer of the year 2008, gave a keynote speech at the Digital News Affairs 2009 event in Brussels. Here is a more or less verbatim version of his story:
First; some facts
Newspaper sales are up for De Standaard and, in fact, all the “quality papers” in Flanders. Populist paper Het Nieuwsblad is declining somewhat. De Standaard reaches about 750.000 Flemish readers daily, or 15% of the populace.
Their newspaper sites are growing rapidly – www.hln.be is the most popular of the sites. The key for the sites’ success: brand integration of the offline and online newspaper brands. De Standaard firmly believes in Mobile – the mobile site currently does about 500.000 mobile PV/month. On the three platforms combined, we reach more people than ever before. Thanks to online and mobile, instead of reaching 600K people with just print, de Standaard reaches 745K people today.
And yes, we make good money with the papers and we make a little bit of money with the sites (9% of the total advertising income currently is online advertising).
How our media fit together:
Every news story has a 0 day, 1 day and 7 day version, spread over different media. Which medium does what is determined by two factors: the need for urgency and the need for depth. A story typically enters the world as follows: 0 day, as the news breaks, the story is brought into the world. Possibly via Twitter, but definitely via mobile and online, as it unfolds. 1 day, the story is presented in the newspaper in a wrapped up version with some background. Possibly, on day 2 there is more in the newspaper (comments, reactions, more background) 7 day, the story possibly makes the weekend edition (and gets lots of background).
What we believe:
1 Quality content will make the difference (we have the editorial force to produce unique content)
2 User generated content is crucial (but we see no real working model around it yet)
3 Integration of newsrooms is a must (although it’s difficult)
4 Cannibalization is a forbidden word (the weight of tradition is naive)
5 IT development is crucial (or are we blaming all our failures on IT?)
6 Mobile will be the most important platform in the future (but where is the money?)
8 Content is more than just words (but can bad video replace good words?)
9 Youth is the future (but will they spend money for it?)
10 The walls between Editorial and Marketing/Sales must be torn down
Are we good enough?
No, we are not good enough. Here are 5 painful constatations
1. We are not quick enough in hiring and training the editorial talent we need
2. We are not unique enough in the content we produce (papers redo TV and radio a day late)
3. We are not creative enough in monetization
4. We are not smart enough to leverage the social networks
5. We are not quick enough in realizing the importance of It in the process
Summary – we are not bold enough in re-inventing ourselves. And we are afraid.
What more do we need? (the 7 bees)
What does the Standaard need to be prepared to tackle/re-invent the media of the future?
We have already have:
Brains, Brands, Big organizations, Broad public (1.2 million, 25% of population)
We need three more:
We need to be Bright, Bold and Brave
Conclusion:
Digital is not the enemy of the established media – the worst enemy of the established media is being established.
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