Broadcast Video and Audio: old ways and new ways

It seems like almost all of the current issues we have nowadays come down to two reasons: money and technology. From its creation to its evolution, technology/the internet has changed everything around us. In journalism, it started with the printed newspaper’s decay and it’s walking towards a broadcast decay in the future as well. 

Credit: Pixabay

As mentioned in the Reuters Institute’s report “What Is Happening to Television News?”, TV viewing has declined by 3 to 4% per year on average since 2012, which if compounded over ten years will result in an overall decline in viewing of 25 to 30%.

The special report “Fading ratings” published by Variety in January 2022 shows that just 12 out of 124 measured networks saw an increase in average primetime audience in 2021 when compared with 2016. It means that 90% of networks experienced a decline ranging from two thousand to several million viewings. 

Variety’s report also reveals that broadcast networks have seen “tremendous primetime audience declines” having CBS as an example that has shed 3.2 million viewers since 2016. It is important to note that despite the decline, CBS still had about 5.6 million primetime viewers in 2021, which is an expressive reach, enough to lead the TV industry. However, the drop in those numbers is not a good sign in the long term. 

The audience has shrunk with the growth of new streaming platforms and video-on-demand providers, like YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and social media. Studies have shown that the majority of TV viewers now are 60+ years old, while the young generation most likely has digital media as news sources.

“There are thus no reasons to believe that a generation that has grown up with and enjoys digital, on-demand, social, and mobile video viewing across a range of connected devices will come to prefer live, linear, scheduled programming tied to a single device just because they grow older,” affirm Nielsen and Sambrook in the Reuters’ report.

Broadcast survival depends on how much and how quickly we can adapt to the changes and recalculate routes. The silver lightning is that technology can also be a solution.

What we can infer from this digital and mobile age is that is affecting the news cycle, from gathering to production and consumption. To reach younger generations, TV providers need to invest in innovation and experimentation in both formats, storytelling methods, length, and distribution strategies to remain relevant. It has to be short, visual, dynamic, and timely. 

In my opinion, the biggest challenges in terms of content are adding value to stories that have already been shared on several websites and social media, and reporting complicated stories in real-time. But it is one of the skills a journalist needs now and will need even more in the future.

I agree with Gavin Bride when he says in Variety’s article “The future of TV news won’t be on TV” that the solution for broadcast is “to knock down the walls and distribute everywhere free and ad-supported: FAST services (and not exclusively on one platform), live streaming and feeds on social media. The new consumers expect content to follow them, not the other way around.” 

I couldn't find a current estimate of the total sum made on ads, but in 2019 the CEO of Xumo, Colin Petrie-Norris, said that "on just ad-supported content with a low-end load of 15 to 17 ads per hour on average, as a channel, you can be earning between 15 cents to 80 cents an hour per viewer." 

Considering that these channels have millions of users, it's not a bad deal. Variety's 2021 report showed that Roku had 55.1 million active accounts, Xumo had over 24 million, Peacock had 20 million, and Pluto TV had 52.3 million global monthly average users.

And it keeps growing. According to data from Kantar, 18% of U.S. households now use at least one free ad-supported TV service as of the fourth quarter of 2021, more than doubled since 2020. YouTube announced it will stream free ad-supported TV shows for the first time to compete with the growing number of FASTs on the market. It is also an opportunity to reach consumers that can't afford cable TV. Another reason is that it can boost distribution and use this visibility to invite people to subscribe to other exclusive content the providers may produce.

In conclusion, journalists and news outlets, in general, must use social networks and all digital platforms available to reach the audience and get closer to them. More than distributing content, they can make this new generation more involved and engaged to express their opinions and suggest topics.

 

Credit: Pixabay

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 4/09/2022 09:11:00 AM

New business models for journalism: profit, nonprofits, and hedge funds

One of the reasons used to explain the crises in the journalism market is profit – or lack of it. We have to agree that it’s hard to compete with giant tech as Facebook and Google when it comes to advertising, which has been the main revenue resource for media outlets for years. 

Credit: Pixabay

However, if everything has been consistently changing due to technology, the key to survival is to change and rethink the business models to find an applicable alternative to make a profit meeting communities’ needs instead of laying off journalists and shutting down newsrooms. It's known that when local newspapers disappear, the society responds with less civic engagement, more polarization, misinformation, corruption, and dysfunction. 

As Steven Waldman and Charles Sennott say in their article on Report for America, “we need a radical shift in our thinking about local media models, including a different attitude toward the role nonprofits play in journalism.” Non-profits are as innovative as commercial outlets, with the addition of quality content rather than sensationalism and quantity of views. 

Nonprofit news is often more representative, responsive, and more closely tied to local communities. Since they don’t pay taxes on their income, their activities must serve the public and not the interests of owners, shareholders, or politicians. 

I was pleased to find that many non-profits are creating and investing in new business models and that they are doing well despite all difficulties. The co-op, in particular, seems to be an outstanding option for me. The idea of having readers as part-owners and having them participate in editorial and business decisions is very interesting. It’s a way of compelling the audience and making them feel an active part of the whole news process. 

Another engaging model has been used by Chicago’s City Bureau on the project called “The Documenters”. It trains people to collect information from their communities and neighborhoods. They can participate in government meetings, and enhance their knowledge, relationships, and capacity to create a new information resources. 

Engaging the audience is also important to have them advocating for the local news cause. One instance is what happened in New Jersey. With a push from Free Press and the public, the State created the Civic Information Consortium, which will give grants to collaborative projects that improve access to information, storytelling, and newsgathering. 

In the article “Nonprofit journalism finally builds scale” published by NiemanLab, Jim Friedlich says that in 2022 several nonprofit news organizations are accelerating their growth. He mentions that The Texas Tribune has continued to grow and inspire other organizations, and Spotlight PA now distributes its content to over 75 newsrooms in Pennsylvania reaching over 35 million visitors monthly. 

Other enterprises plan to launch with corporate resources and commercial models rarely seen in nonprofit news. Such as The Baltimore Banner, which will be launched with an annual budget of $15 million and will sell subscriptions to support its operation, and Chicago Public Media, which will be completely acquired by the Chicago Sun-Times. 

To sum up, I agree with Friedlich when he says that nonprofit news has created meaningful new reporting capacity for journalism, but its long-term success and impact depend upon it becoming a much larger and smarter business. “Enlightened new capital, business acumen, and a capacity to build at scale are required to truly rebuild — indeed, reinvent — American local news.”

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 4/04/2022 09:22:00 AM

The new newsrooms

It has been very interesting for me to read and learn more about the new newsrooms. A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me about the future of journalism. In Brazil, 12 big media organizations closed in 2021, and many magazines and centennial newspapers have stopped their print version to become online outlets. Despite the costs and financial issues, we also talked about how to make newsworthy content in an age where information comes from many different sources and social media in real-time. 

Credit: Pixabay

My answer was that to stand out, journalists and newsrooms have to engage more with the audience, know their needs, and address the information directly to them. I haven’t made that connection yet, but now I notice how it relates to local and nonprofit news, as well as activist journalism.

I realized how powered the local news is to connect us to our community and neighbors and give voice to what wouldn’t be covered by the big media. Unfortunately, according to The U.S. News Deserts Database, 1,800 communities in the US have lost their local newsroom since 2004. Besides, the article “The death knell for local newspapers? It’s perilously close” by Margaret Sullivan published in The Washington Post mentioned that more than 2,000 local newspapers have gone out of business in the last 15 years. 

That contributes to a less informed public, which leads to less civic engagement and public polarization – and it is exactly what we can see both here and in Brazil. 

That is why nonprofit newsrooms are so important and are helping to fill these gaps. They have been producing content focused on one or a few society’s problems, providing in-depth coverage, and also opening space for an inclusive and diverse staff. Another positive point is that they are in essence trustful, nonpartisan and focused on facts, and transparent about their funding and commercial media. 

All that work seems to be promising. Audiences grew and journalism has served more people as third-party outlets published the content produced by nonprofit news organizations. In addition, the number of nonprofit outlets has been increased at an average pace of a dozen or more a year since 2008. 

Activism Journalism

In my opinion, one of the reasons they are growing and reaching more people is because of activism journalism. I agree with Gwen Lister when she says here that activism can be combined with journalism, in terms of causes, whatever those causes may be. The public likes to see their stories, struggles, and problems on media; they want to feel represented. 

Credit: Pixabay

I see it similarly as employing bias in journalism. Everyone has a bias, but it doesn’t mean that when producing content, a journalist won’t follow the objective process of journalism. 

An activist journalist can be subjective when choosing things to cover but verify the information and follow fair practices and writing rules. 

To sum up, I would highlight Gwen Lister’s opinion about one of the challenges of journalism today. “We mustn’t let our standards slip because of the digital tsunami and social media onslaught that is pointing people in the direction of entertainment and clickbait.” 

As I answered my friend when we are discussing the future of journalism, we need to break through those challenges (social media, mis- and disinformation) with serious journalism because it makes a real difference in people’s lives. 

References:

Kohli, Anisha 2022, ‘We wanted to be the voice of the voiceless people of Namibia’, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, accessed 18 February 2022, <https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2022/02/we-wanted-to-be-the-voice-of-the-voiceless-people-of-namibia/>.

Sullivan, Margareth 2019, The death knell for local newspapers? It’s perilously close, The Washington Post, accessed 18 February 2022, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-death-knell-for-local-newspapers-its-perilously-close/2019/11/21/e82bafbc-ff12-11e9-9518-1e76abc088b6_story.html>.

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 2/18/2022 02:42:00 PM