Discussing the threat to traditional media companies posed by search engine companies – that act as portals or a web user’s first stop on the net – at the Consumer OnLine Services show in New York, Cable News Network EVP Lou Dobbs said the four leading media companies have a market cap of $155bn and generated profits of $16bn in their most recent financial years. The four leading search sites, including Yahoo, Lycos and Excite have a market cap of $5bn and generated profits of $15m – or at least Yahoo’s profit minus other companies’ losses. Small they may be, but the web guys, Dobbs notes, are out to get the cable guys, just like CNN set out to get the network news guys in 1980.
Microsoft seeks better web metrics
Microsoft Corp VP news and publishing Peter Neupert thanked Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for helping him get distribution for Microsoft content on Netscape and America Online services. He said Microsoft, which next Monday begins charging $20 to subscribe to the previously free political magazine Slate, has got some 10,000 orders up front, amounting to $200,000. (Wonder if that’ll pay Michael Kinsley’s salary?) Neupert said he’s looking for some new commonality in the way web users and page views are counted to better quantify for advertisers the quality of web site visitors.
USA Today goes to Bloomberg
USA Today Online’s VP and GM Lorraine Cichowski said her company had thought readers of the paper edition of USA Today would be the primary reader of its web edition but finds just 10% overlap. Advertising is important but Cichowski said revenue from transactions – selling archives and third party services – is now 40% of the online edition’s revenue base, expected to climb to 50%. In another blow to the services of more established financial news services such as Reuters and Dow Jones, USA Today Online’s partnering with Bloomberg LP, which is to provide financial information to the web site and general news to USA Today Online editors. The three-year-old USA Today Online claims 5.5 million page views a day.
NY Times does NYToday
The New York Times is currently working on its answer to Sidewalk NY, Digital Cities NY and CitySearch which will be called NY Today. It’s yet another resource, listing, event and service guide, though some insiders we spoke to clearly feel the market is already too overcrowded to support yet another service. It’s doing NY Today in conjunction with a partner.
Give customers to advertisers – News always has the same agenda
News America Digital Publishing’s James Murdoch says that as far as his company’s net news services are concerned the objective is the same as for News Corp’s Fox and other television interests: namely, connecting marketers with readers and/or viewers. One of television’s biggest advertising draws, sports programming, is simply not available to the online services as live or recorded sport on the web is all-but non-existent.
Journalistic principles won’t migrate to web
Many of America’s largest traditional news media concerns such as News Corp, NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today and Hearst, don’t perceive the search engines as a threat to their businesses. Anyone, they argue can re-package news wire services, but because of the search engine company’s focus on stock performance they are not able, cannot afford and are apparently not interested in building their own news gathering services. Where they do compete is being able to more quickly and effectively provide the web services which customers want. Television and print media companies aren’t able to give users the same kind of unadulterated attention. Most of these companies seemed to agree that the traditional print media’s principles of journalistic accuracy, objectiveness and fairness are unlikely to be transplanted on to the web. They disagreed about whether local or community-oriented web-based news services will occupy an important place for them on the web.
