The Internet allows media companies to communicate with consumers on an individual basis. Traditional media is built on the premise of a mass audience. Another Forrester report, Old Media's New Role, says the spread of the Internet through multiple devices will lead to smaller, more expensive newspapers, turn magazines into Website extensions and eliminate broadcast television as a mass medium. It also says that to survive as distribution channels proliferate and profits decline, media companies must dominate content niches and take advantage of them across multiple distribution channels. Many in the media business believe the industry shot itself in the foot in the mid-Nineties when most print publications decided to give away their content on the Web.
Consumers expect content to be free.
We took what we were selling in one store and started giving it away in another. We have cheapened our content and there is no going back. Now, Jacobsohn says, media companies need to find new sources of revenue. They will do this, he says, by marrying content with commerce. This could lead to a revolt from more traditional editors.