ANDREW Neill, well known in media circles as a long-time Murdoch editor and now publisher of the Spectator in Britain, has been in the region talking about the future of media, writes Mark Hollands
He had a chat with Leigh Sales, of the ABC’s Lateline program, the other night. She asked the world’s most obvious but ill-informed media question, “are newspapers dying?” Her job to do so. No problem with that. And Neill gave an excellent answer, and also spent sometime explaining that our newspapers are not likes those basket cases in the United States. He also illustrates the importance of your newspaper website if you have the gumption, imagination and execution to get it right.
You can stream the video and listen to the entire interview, although it finishes with a spruik of Neill’s Spectator magazine – ‘champagne for the brain’ or some such tosh. (I thought you weren’t allowed to sell on the ABC but clearly you are). However, it’s still worth a watch and courtesy of the ABC transcript, below is his answer to Leigh’s $64 million question:
Neill:
No, they are not. Some are, some deserve to die. The trend is most pronounced in the United States because the United States is dominated by inefficient high cost big city monopoly newspapers who are not used to competing.
So, they’re really taking a hit because they’ve been fat cats they can’t handle the revolution that is the Internet and multichannel TV. I don’t think that’ true of British or Australian newspapers.
We’re much more competitive. Yes, some of the weaker brethren will go; they deserve do. Will there be a move to the web, yes.
But I think the strong newspaper brands in Britain and Australia, not so much in continental Europe where they’re weak too, but in Britain and Australia they will survive and they will have very strong websites as well.
Our strongest brands also have strong web plays, and we’ve stopped thinking it’s an either or proposition. Indeed we know you can’t have one without the other, and the opportunities are great.
You think of famous British brands that went global before the Internet age. ‘The Financial Times’, ‘The Economist’.
Well, there’s a third called the ‘Guardian’, because the Guardian web site is one of the… it’s now the third biggest website in American newspapers. It’s bigger than the ‘LA Times’ or the ‘Washington Post’.
So, there are huge opportunities out there as well as problems. There’s change in media. Every major model, whether it’s in broadcasting or newspapers or magazines, is now under threat. But that doesn’t mean to say we can’t adapt.”
Tags: ABC, Andrew Neill, Australian newspapers, Lateline, Leigh Sales, newspaper websites, newspapers, newspapers future, Rupert Murdoch, Spectator, Spectator Magazine, The Guardian
