The future of content

Leveraging content assets across new, revenue generating distribution channels is a critical challenge for media and entertainment companies as the nature of media consumption shifts. The days of consumers enjoying TV, music, video, film, radio, and print content in the forms created by media companies, at the times programmers or editors wanted to deliver the content, and at the price the company choose to charge for it have faded rapidly over the last 10 years. It started with print media, as newspaper circulation eroded, replaced by real time Internet news sites and ultimately customized, on demand or streamed news feeds. It was followed by the record industry, which ignored customer demand for downloadable, individual songs and as a result saw a rapid decline in CD sales. Radio listenership has declined, with the rise in pod casts, ipods, and streaming music. Finally, over the last two years, it has expanded to video content, which is quickly shifting to the web and mobile and gaming platforms.

What this means for media companies is that they need to rethink their content and how to distribute it. Customers want their media on demand or streamed to them, to their computer and, perhaps more importantly, their mobile device. They want it on their schedule, not the media companies. They want it in time frames that work for them - 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 30 seconds. And they start with the assumption that if there is advertising (and sometimes even if there isn't), it should be free. For publishers facing significantly lower online CPM's, which are under pressure by ever expanding inventory, the math of purely ad supported online content doesn't currently work except for niche and technology oriented content. For publishers to succeed, they need to revalue their content by considering charging for it. Paid circulation magazines and newspapers generally commended higher rates than free publications because they illustrated customer loyalty and engagement while helping to defer costs. As content migrates online, smart publishers will figure out how to successfully parse their content and get readers to pay for at least some of it, creating a second revenue stream.