« Industry Leaders | Main | Business Up North »
August 1, 2008
US Media Goes Global
I had breakfast this week with Michael Elliott, who runs the four regional editions of TIME Magazine (Asia, Europe, Canada, Australia/NZ). I also had dinner last Friday with Graham Bowley, who runs the foreign desk at the New York Times. Both of these long standing pillars of mainstream media are capitalizing on the recent rise in interest outside the US in American news as told by American media. This has long been true of the UK based media, especially the BBC, Economist and Financial Times. Here are some of the most important tidbits:
1) The New York Times web site is attracting 37 million monthly unique visitors from outside of the US, almost twice as many as the 21 million from the US. The non-US circulation for Time’s print products is about ¼ of the total of 4 million.
2) The content of Time outside of the US is more skewed to business. Fifty percent of the content for each edition is generated from the US, the balance from regional bureaus. According to Elliott, “the reader is interested in issues outside of the region. He or she is a globally minded person.”
3) The Time International reader is making at least 100,000 Euros, is a frequent flyer, and speaks a second language fluently.
4) Time has folded its Time Asia and Time Europe web sites into a single global Time.com web site as of 18 months ago.
5) Both companies are exploring the expansion of the brand to encompass special dinners and conferences. Time has worked with Shell (disclosure: Edelman client) on a global series of salon dinners on the future of energy, including a recent event for 100 opinion leaders in Singapore.
6) Time has kept separate the on-line and mainstream units. The NY Times has effectively merged the operations.
7) The need for speed in posting content has led to a fundamental re-ordering of the editor’s job. Bowley told me about one of his reporters was in Berlin covering Senator Obama, moving from event to event. The reporter received a copy of the speech in advance and had written some parts of the story. The reporter called Bowley from the scene and gave his impressions. Bowley then wrote several paragraphs to provide context to the article, which was then posted to the web site. The reporter later edits the piece from the field with observations from third parties or participants.
There are several implications for PR people. Given the competitive race to post stories, we can help by providing reporters on the run advance copies of speeches or press releases so they can write some copy ahead of the event. This should be accompanied by video to provide visual supporting evidence. We can support the continued evolution of a story by posting comments on the on-line version, as well as providing access to expert commentary. We need to work with editors, not just reporters, because more of the content is being written by the editor at home office by dint of necessity. We can propose stories to regional bureaus; an example is Time’s coverage of the carbon neutral city MASDAR (an Edelman client) from the London bureau because of the editor’s comparative knowledge of the energy and environment sectors. We should also be considering partnerships with media companies as conveners on issues.
I would appreciate your comments as always.
Posted by Edelman at August 1, 2008 9:27 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.edelman.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/611
Comments
There are essentially two worlds... one that relies on TV and print media for news and information and another that relies on online sources. The former is shrinking and the latter is growing.
Thanks for reporting signs that some of the big guys are at least conscious of this!
Posted by: Craig Klein at August 4, 2008 4:15 PM
I had not read this entry until today, but to me, more important than the US media going global is the fact that it is the major English-language media that are the global media. It is not just Business Week and The New York Times, it is also BBC (The sun never sets on the BBC empire ...), FT, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and a handful of others. (There are also the major global trade media and these too are English-language, e.g. ICIS Chemical Business.) The thread through all of these is that they are as above, in English. And they are incredibly and widely followed in emerging and developed markets around the world, regardless of the language spoken there. That is a much bigger trend than merely the US media going global. It is a much bigger opportunity for PR people to serve their clients or companies.
Posted by: Gary Wells at August 20, 2008 5:40 PM
Or you can bypass the editorial/journalist channel altogether to place your announcements and points of view. We've negotiated paid placement at some of the top national newspaper websites in the US, and we're expanding rapidly to cover regionals as well.
Our intent is to give PR pros more options in the whole media relations game. For some stories, yes it makes sense to do traditional pitches and editorial support. For many others, though, it's more expeditious to extend your options to include a PR network like Newsforce. As long as it's fully transparent, and the network meets all FTC guidelines and publishers' editorial specs, everyone's happy. Right?
With the shrinking staffs on the editorial side, it only makes sense to pursue other methods of reaching the same (growing) audience via more direct methods.
What we found, surprisingly enough, is that news readers are interested in reading well-written PR, almost as much as regular editorial coverage. Emphasis: "well written" and interesting stories. PR's not just for journalists anymore. And that's a good thing.
Yes it's limited to online and text headlines only right now, but that's the biggest growing part of news - yes? I think that was your point.
Keep up the insights, and keep pushing the PR world outside its comfort zone, Richard.
Sincerely,
Dana Todd
CMO
Newsforce
Posted by: Dana Todd at August 31, 2008 6:48 PM