I was at the the exchange4media conclave in Delhi yesterday, where the first panel, featured a riveting discussion on the future of print media and the impact of digital media, particularly between Ashish Bagga, CEO, Living Media (India Today Group) and Vir Sanghvi, Editorial Director, Hindustan Times. Sanghvi started dwelled on the growth of all media in India, attributing it to a growth of literacy and demographic changes. He feels that unlike the west, India is truly going to the exploit the long tail, and there will be multiplicity of media – and Print won’t be king, but it will be the leader. More in the audio below..and a counterpoint from Ashish Bagga to follow
Download File (mp3)
Mr. Sanghvi's points seemed to say a lot about very little (video didn't really kill the radio star, did it? Well, duh).
On the long tail: A long tail needs to be exposed to the users, traditionally through a powerful search engine. To a print medium, that important tool is lost. And I am not sure how he linked the long tail concept to media co-existing: no one meant to allude that one media type will replace the other; rather that one will no longer be as important and/or relevant as the other. See: TV versus everything else, for example.
As for newspapers talking to specific audiences via print — that has always existed. I think regional papers are the main reason when he mentions the growth of newspapers in India. But regional does not equate to mainstream; and that is what one means to when one mentions the "death" of print. Plus there is nothing stopping a regional website from catering to the same audience, is there?
I think death is a harsh term and it only serves to divert attention from what the real issue is — that print is no longer as relevant as it used to be. The Internet does it faster, cheaper, and in a variety of formats suitable for multiple modes of consumption.
There are hurdles getting to the online medium: net access, data input options for regional languages, native OS/browser support of regional fonts, and so on. But the writing is on the wall: print needs to start taking the online space seriously.
i agree with Ahmed … listening to the audio made me think that i am at some Book Reading ceremony .
Long tail is good but its not a new invention its just a discovery . where is the enabling infrastructure for Long Tail based business plan ? where is Connectivity ? PC Penetration? Literacy ? Low cost Internet Enabled Mobile Device and usable services ?
if Amazon's bet on Kindle is something to go by than Print is in trouble. in fact i think medium of delivering information is not so important whats important is content relevance , reach , interactivity . in this respect Online is far ahead of Print.
My gut feel is that Its not a Question of IF its a Question of When . print publication might buy some time but shift is inevitable . Not Death exactly but irrelevance
one scenario which is surfacing in US ( in Sports & Event journalism ) is to use Blogger as a Beat reporter and publish a Detailed story and analysis in subsequent edition of publication . this ensure some relevance on net and some value add on print . if you add a twitter stream to this Beat reporter ( May be Paid ) which interested dreader can subscribe to . than it can be a killer .
this can save the day for print .
search engine penetration thru long trail, i guess this is now going to work in search marketing.
Book cheap air tickets from hawaiiyatra.com