Is Innovation in Media Stymied by Pandemic?
Budget crunches won’t stifle creative ideas
What a time to be examining the Innovation in Media 2020–21 World Report as the industry experiences unprecedented upheavals under a dark coronavirus cloud.
I’ve read this annual survey for years but was struck by the ironic twist in the latest edition focused in great part on hiring, training, motivating, retaining, recognizing and promoting talented, committed people while media worldwide are laying off staffers by the boatload.
“Not only does having (and keeping) the best talent increase your chances of success, but it also saves you a ton of money and anxiety,” wrote co-editors John Wilpers and Juan Señor. “It is extremely expensive to lose good staff.”
Tell that to organizations running major deficits, slashing budgets, adjusting to the new normal of decentralized, video-conferenced operations, distributed newsrooms, and work-from-home offices.
Finances permitting, recruiting and retaining the best talent may be desirable, but so are dexterity and skill sets for media employers (and employees) to cope with this pandemic environment, and beyond.
The authors acknowledge that most media don’t have enough diversity on their staffs, notably with the under-representation of women, and provide tips from a Harvard Business Review piece on how to recruit them.
They involve making job postings more inclusive, sharing stories of successful women across all levels in one’s organization, posting salary ranges for positions, highlighting one’s flexibility (flexible work, working from home, medical benefits), and expanding one’s “early-in-career talent funnel.”
The report also offers important advice on how to set up a mentorship program with five key steps to follow: match people by interest or what they want to achieve; don’t force it, but make it serious; empower the mentee to take charge; create structure, but not too much; and allow for reverse mentoring.
While this may not seem exceptionally innovative, media organizations often overlook the whole mentorship concept for lack of interest, time, resources, or any number of factors, sadly at their own peril.
Points well taken, but how do you monetize your media content?
It’s a question that still puzzles and troubles media as print publications fold, online news outlets venture into new territory, broadcast channels revise their raison d’être, digital multimedia morph into countless permutations, and everyone tries to figure out what the best business model is to survive stormy weather.
The report presents 13 options that can be chosen separately or in conjunction with others from the list, keeping in mind that even success stories can turn sour when economies head south.
The obvious model is subscriptions, with its roller coaster ride of growth and shrinkage under different forms.
Non-profits as a model help struggling media pay the bills, but they, too, have ebbed and flowed.
Then there’s e-commerce, and the big money maker, events, until coronavirus struck, which has been replaced by virtual meetings, seminars, conferences and whatever real physical gatherings attracted revenue for media in pre-corona days.
The IT provider business model, selling a content management platform, has been profitable for the likes of The Washington Post and Vox Media — owner of The Verge, Recode, Eater and New York Magazine — which the report said made them members of a very exclusive club.
“Most publishers lack the resources to build tech products because it takes lots of expensive talent and lots of time to build market-ready technologies,” according to the innovation survey.
But at this writing, CNN reported Vox Media “is furloughing about 9% of its employees for three months. The decision is one of several measures the digital media company announced Friday to cut costs after the coronavirus pandemic decimated its revenue sources.”
Needless to say, advertising hasn’t vanished from the equation although it’s still growing in the digital sphere and faces hurdles like ad blocking, due to poor formats and intrusive commercials.
On the up side, the report cites podcasts as the new (and perhaps greatest) revenue and subscriptions tool.
Not only are vast numbers of podcast fans listening, but they are also listening A LOT, consuming multiple episodes in one sitting and listening for previously unheard of lengths of time!
The report said that aside from rapidly improving technology, listeners are attracted to podcasts because they’re entertaining, provocative, educational, and fill previously uninspiring times of the day like commutes, daily chores, long walks, and grocery shopping, and have become an almost personal relationship.
But it also cautioned against making these podcast launch mistakes: not picking the right RSS feed provider; starting the feed without a trailer; using bad cover art; providing poor show descriptions and liner notes; having no marketing or budget strategy; publishing the first podcast you produce; not getting good feedback; and, not getting “airchecks,” or honest feedback from colleagues.
Circle back to sustainability, where media companies are tapping into innovative ideas focused on “going green,” with a mea culpa.
After a rush of sustainability policy activity about ten years ago when the topic was initially hot, going green in media seems to have been reduced to creating print and/or digital editions or big text or digital packages about climate change spelling out how businesses, governments, and our readers can and should become good environmental citizens.
But as far as we ourselves becoming good environmental citizens goes…
Well, we’re either doing a terrible job telling people what we’re doing, or we really have been too distracted with the other, more basic tasks of figuring out how to survive and thrive.
But all is not lost.
Earlier this year, the Guardian announced it would no longer accept advertising from oil or gas companies in any of its digital or print properties, while National Geographic stopped using its traditional plastic-like wrapping, instead opting for biodegradable packaging, to name just two examples.