Grayling Blog

Is this the dawn of a new era for traditional news?

27 years ago the BBC aired a programme which signalled fundamental change in the way consumers perceived broadcast media. That Was The Week That Was (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/twtwtw/) literally shook the establishment to its core through its lampoon and satirical bite and, critically for the BBC, it attracted a younger and more cutting edge audience, previously disaffected by the corporation’s perceived ‘cosiness’.

Fast forward to 2009 and the financial crisis and, in particular, the recent Telegraph newspaper’s expenses story that exposed the extortionate expenses claims made by British politicians, ‘expensesgate’, may just have given us This Is The Year That Was. Critically for traditional media, the saga renewed and refreshed interest amongst new and younger audiences in a format resigned to extinction and in news and commentary previously ignored.

Certainly there are those who continue to ring its death bell. Steve Ballmer at this year’s Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, said that there is no question over whether all content will be consumed digitally or not, the only debate was whether it would be in one, two, five or ten years (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/24/microsoft-steve-ballmer-cannes) (http://www.microsoftmdc.com/steve-ballmer%E2%80%99s-acceptance-speech-%E2%80%93-cannes-lions-2009) .

Looking at the roll-call of recent fatalities and redundancies in the UK, it would be easy to concur. 1,200 jobs slashed at the newspaper Mirror Group, 100 gone at Nat Mags, 40 at Newsquest and 30 at BBC magazines is just the tip of the iceberg.

But a simple forecast of a life without printed news seems to me to be a tad premature. What is undeniable though is how ‘expensesgate’ has affirmed the power of the duality campaign within a news environment. In other words, a campaign which uses trusted content sourced by quality journalists to deliver rich experience via a choice of channels.

Circulation of the Economist is up 3.1% in the UK and 6.4% globally (http://ads.economist.com/the-economist/circulation/regional-increases/), a sure sign of consumer appetite for features and analysis with substance in a tried and tested format. Would we be as excited by an increase in traffic on their website? And would clients be clamouring over themselves for editorial inclusion in purely an online version? And what about ‘expensesgate’?

The big question still being debated is whether the story would have had as much of an impact if it had been broken on-line. Whichever side you’re on (I’m in the ‘No’ camp for what it’s worth) you can’t fail to have been impressed by the Telegraph newspaper’s figures. 1 million extra sales have been added across both the Daily and Sunday versions since the story broke.

But of equal interest is how the story was consumed and played out across varying media platforms. It showed not only that there is room for both traditional and digital media within news but importantly, when they feed off of each other in a way which enriches consumer experience, the combination is simply awesome.

One story living, breathing and evolving across traditional and digital channels, serving to educate, inform and enhance knowledge, understanding and the consumer experience. This is duality in harmony and this is the future…for now.