In my years discussing disruptive innovation while teaching Newspaper Next concepts, I often said that newspapers’ advertising/circulation blinders kept us from developing a digital marketplace such as Amazon.
Well, now, we finally have Amazon’s disruptive founder in the newspaper business, with the Washington Post’s announced sale to Jeff Bezos.
I don’t have time to analyze the deal today — and wouldn’t trust such swift analysis if I did — but I am glad to see such a disruptor coming to the newspaper business. I think we can count on the Post moving beyond the narrow advertising/subscriptions model that is collapsing.
To see Bezos bringing his disruptive approach to the newspaper of Katharine Graham, Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Dana Priest, Carol Guzy and Gene Weingarten is exciting and intriguing. I look forward to it in anticipation.
It’s not what Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan forecast in EPIC 2014, but that did forecast an amazing Amazon merger. So I’ll post it here as a reminder.
Disclosure: My wife, Mimi Johnson, published her novel, Gathering String, using Amazon’s self-publishing services.
My first thought after hearing the news about the sale of The Post was: “Googlezon!” It’s not an exact match, but the idea was there, in 2004.
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I’m sure a lot of folks in the news biz will be watching closely. Personally, I think the Post’s website is pretty good, but they’re still losing money, overall. I’m inclined to believe that the print product is still making money, but they’re losing a ton of money on the website as they continue to spend in order to ramp up their digital operations.
The question is (as always): how are they going to make enough money to sustain that operation and support the expenses (staff, technical, etc.) that go with it – well into the future, after print operations stop making any money?
I think the major reason so many “legacy” news companies (not just print, but local TV will start feeling the pinch soon as streaming TV services become more and more entrenched) are struggling with the internet is because internet revenue is typically geared towards volume. It’s stacking dimes, nickels and pennies instead of counting dollars like they they did with print and broadcast advertising. And few news organizations have large enough audiences to support robust operation expenses that way.
This is key, though – unlike most of the corporations that presently own news media, Bezos isn’t afraid to lose money in the short term in order to achieve long term goals.
My question is, assuming they find a successful formula under Bezos’ leadership, is if smaller, local news companies can follow suit without the Post’s huge, established audience.
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