The irony cannot be missed. The havoc wrought by the novel coronavirus pandemic has opened the floodgates for news and information as never before. People are desperate to understand the shifting sands of the unfolding tragedy. But the spiking demand for news has not bolstered news networks. In fact, they are facing the worst crisis ever as companies collapse and departments fold up. The latest AC Nielsen survey shows that television viewership increased 40 per cent for India, 34 per cent for Australia, 20 per cent for France and 17 per cent for UK during week 15 of the pandemic in April, as compared to the pre-Covid period. On the other hand, physical newspapers, with distribution lines collapsing, are hollowing out into skeletal editions. They have no advertising revenue because there are no products to advertise.
It’s the same story from Sydney, New Delhi and Washington. The big ones are surviving; it’s the mid-levels and small ones that are folding up. In the US, the Tampa Bay Times, known not to miss a single edition in 96 years, stopped its print edition for five days and laid off 11 journalists. Seattle’s Pulitzer-winning weekly The Stranger dismissed its entire staff and has suspended printing. Employees have been fired at The Denver Post and Boston Herald and salary cuts imposed at The Dallas Morning News.
Advertising caves in
Donald Trump, pleased at the dipping fortunes of news media, tweeted: “Advertising in the Failing New York Times is WAY down. Washington Post is not much better. I can’t say whether this is because they are Fake News sources of information, or the Virus is just plain beating them up (sic).” India, with its 400 registered news channels and a record 1.2 lakh registered dailies and magazines, has a healthy Fourth Estate jostling for space in the democratic process.
But the current crisis has left it gasping for breath. Digital platform Bloomberg Quint sent 45 of its employees on furlough or unpaid leave for an indefinite period, and later announced the closure of its television division. Outlook Magazine announced it was suspending printing operations on 30 March. Many of the big media houses have announced salary cuts ranging from 10 to 50 per cent. The cost of publishing and broadcasting is spiralling upwards and media groups have to make huge investments in news gathering to stay ahead.
However, the earnings from advertising, the mainstay for news media, is drying up proportionately. Legacy media has over the years changed gear to develop digital platforms but has been outmaneuvered by the giants Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. In the US, Google, FB and Amazon scooped up 70 per cent of digital advertising. Former London’s Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who is credited for building the newspaper’s digital platform, claimed in 2016 that FB alone had skimmed off close to $27 million from the newspaper’s digital revenue in the previous year. “They are taking all the money” because “they have algorithms which we don’t understand, which are a filter between what we do and how people receive it,” he said.
Stealing content
But the big sleight of hand is the free use of news content, mined and distributed by the traditional news chains, which FB, Google and their ilk use to enhance their digital reach. Products like Google News poach out stories and videos from hundreds of news sites without paying a penny. The fight of news networks to get FB and others to pay for what they use and to seek a fair share of their advertising revenue just got a boost last Monday when Australia announced it would enforce the sharing formula and a regulatory system to support it.
Earlier, Spain had made it compulsory for digital platforms to pay news publishers for content; but Google pulled out Google News from the country. Payment for news content was also made part of the European Union copyright laws and France was the first to implement it. Again, Google refused to pay and simply switched to showing headlines and links. It shows it will take more than legal and legislative fiat to bring these trillion dollar giants to book, hide as they do behind the veil of digital secrecy. Without the survival of the vast network of news media, democracy will be that much weaker.
The little bytes of hearsay that pass off as ‘news’ on social media will be the currency of the day. A strategy of survival of news media is therefore necessary, one that leans more on pay-as-you-use rather than a ‘free’ advertising dependent model. Governments across the globe are putting together multi- billion dollar stimulus packages, and some of it should flow to the media networks too. The flip side is: these should not be leveraged to control and manipulate news outlets. Ultimately, ‘news’ and information are powerful products that have strong market value. The big question is: how can it be monetised?
SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS POACH CONTENTS, BUT DON’T PAY FOR IT
Products like Google News poach out stories and videos from hundreds of news sites without paying a penny. The fight of news networks to get FB and others to pay for what they use and to seek a fair share of their advertising revenue just got a boost last Monday when Australia announced it would enforce the sharing formula and a regulatory system to support it.