Decade in review: How the Internet ruined everything

Seriously, I think much of the decline of old media was self-imposed and started long before the internet enjoyed anything like its current reach. Flash back to 1999, and while the net was a wonderful thing in many ways it offered nothing like the breadth or depth of information available today. On the other hand, media had already become the playthings of MBA holders, by which I mean that growth had overtaken stability or longevity as the marker of economic health. Brands and reputations began to be seen as fungible commodities, partly because of the IPO/merger mania that took hold during the dotcom boom.

Back then I was still an avid consumer of print media, because it filled need that the internet couldn't supply (and to a large extent, still doesn't). For example, I read Scientific American religiously. Then, the publishers of the magazine decided to change the format: instead of something that resembled a journal for the educated but non-specialist reader, they tried to reposition themselves as an upmarket version of Popular Science - more graphics, more headline bait, shorter articles. I got a sinking feeling on picking up one issue with a Top 10 reasons to read SA wrapper which included the gem: 'you don't have to read the whole magazine!' Really? Way to devalue your own product, guys. I quit buying it about a year later when I noticed it had taken me only two hours to read the latest issue and a comparison with back issues revealed they had switched to a larger font so the page count was about the same but the amount of content had fallen by about 20% (to say nothing of the trend towards filler articles about the 'science' of golf balls, baldness and similar fluff). I still check it on the newsstand every month, and every month it gets a little sadder. Their website doesn't exactly distinguish it from the competition either - in fact these days, New Scientist comes across as a more serious read.

I don't think Internet killed Scientific American - I find it harder to keep up with science news now, and I'm less informed than I used to be: no single resource gives me the kind of in-depth knowledge and editorial assistance I used to get from the print edition, and if they turned the clock back on their format tomorrow I'd start reading it again in a flash. I still read The Economist in print every week: they've got more colorful and 'designed' in recent years, but not at the expense of existing quality. And they seem to be doing just fine: there is still a healthy audience for long-form journalism. What's different in the latter case is that The Economist built upon their core competency and supplemented it, rather than trading away part of their 'brand capital' for greater breadth but less depth.

I know I'm not the typical consumer. But as well as being a loyal reader, I'm also an enthusiastic promoter of media I like. When Scientific American lost me as a reader, they also lost someone who would push 8 or 10 other readers towards the magazine, via everything from recommendations to gift subscriptions. Shifting their brand towards short-term currency devalued it significantly; now every issue is targeted at the first-time buyer, and become disposable in the process.

This kind of myopia seems to be endemic in the media business. The San Francisco Chonicle, which has suffered the worst revenue drop of any major newspaper (25%!) over the last year, recently completed its shift towards a new strategy...which strategy consists of making the paper almost tabloid-sized and printing on glossy, magazine-quality paper. I hope this makes it somehow cheaper to print and distribute, because I sure as hell don't consider the paper stock and color saturation as significant factors when I purchase a paper - I am (surprise) drawn the by the significance and detail of the stories featured on the front page - which in the case of the Chronicle, continue to decline, even as they feature bigger and more colorful pictures of their columnists, people whose careers I care nothing about. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have now moved in for the kill, adding Bay Area sections to captured disaffected consumers who have given up on the local paper.

Eye candy and presentation have their place in media: it is a battle for attention, and being able to attract the customer with a better presentation does drive sales. But publishing is a business oriented around repeat sales of a highly perishable commodity (information) and the repeatability of those sales is very much a function of how much time customers have already invested in your product. You can quantify how many seconds I stare at papers on the stand before picking it up, or how it scores in focus groups, but what's going to make buy your product again (and make it valuable to your advertisers) is the amount of my free time I choose to spend with it after the buying decision. If I can't find more than 20 minutes' worth of interesting content in there, why keep buying it? Has anyone ever written to an editor to complain that the newspaper or magazine they bought contains too much information and they found it too interesting and time consuming to read regularly? Of course not. Of course, the level of depth isn't for everyone; that's why some people read the New York Post instead of the New York Times. But if you're working at the latter and have a circulation problem, it's unlikely to be due to an excess of quality.