2008-Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

I hope you all had a nice holiday season. I'm always amazed how fast it speeds by. In the States, with a week less between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the holiday seemed to go by even faster.

The Olferts have many Christmas traditions. For one, on Thanksgiving, we allow ourselves the pleasure of listening to one Christmas CD -- Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas CD (what a missed talent Guaraldi was). That's it. The day after Thanksgiving, the flood gate of Christmas jazz, gospel and classical flow freely.

We like to kick off December with the local Christmas parade (click here). Pleasanton, Calif. might be part of the greater Bay Area with millions of people, but for one night you feel like you stepped back into time -- some small, Mayberry-like experience. It's everything local: the two high school bands, every Boy Scout and Girl Scout troop in Pleasanton, countless other groups, city council members, fire trucks, the Mayor of Pleasanton and, of course, Santa. This is followed by the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in front of the local museum, and then the town crowd the street to sing Christmas songs. It's corny but fun.

An Olfert Christmas day is pretty well organized, too -- open stockings first, kids play/watch a video while we make French toast for breakfast, then presents. The kids had a great time this year.

2008 started with a new job for me, and I spent the rest of the year just doing a lot of learning. Avanade had its best fiscal year (ended August 30). The global economy is causing us to be prudent and even more focused and strategic -- which is a good thing. The Comms and PR function are working well, but still much more to do in 2009 to become even more effective and relevant to the business. One area to explore and experiment with will be various forms of social media. Frankly, we're still making significant strides to our traditional media and analyst relations program (two strong people leading those efforts). 2009 will require more emphasis on new forms of media (see today's Financial Times article "Companies Use Twitter to Pack PR Punch" ... subscription might be required).

But for my 401k, 2008 can't exit fast enough. What an amazing implosion of our financial system.

As a new administration takes office in the U.S., and countless global challenges await President-elect Obama, I have no idea what to expect. From a business standpoint, here's hoping for a better year in 2009.

Even more important, here's to a happy and healthy new year. I look forward to continuing our conversation in 2009.

VIDEO: News in 2015

Some of you may have seen this, but a colleague sent it to me today. A frightening, hypothetical look at the news industry in 2015. This is particularly relevant (and incredibly well done) based on the events of this week with Tribune and The New York Times.

This was developed in 2007 by the Poynter Institute. I had trouble sizing it, so you can find the video here.

FT: Who will mourn local newspapers

Good post from John Gapper today (subscription requirement likely) in The Financial Times. He notes that the recession has "turned the long slow decline of newspapers int oa brisk fall." He raises the concern I mentioned a few posts ago on Tribune's Chapter 11 filing -- that newspaper journalists fear that "television, radio and blogs can never replace what newspapers provided for readers."

Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times on NPR recently said this: "Good journalism does not come cheap." His point -- not too many websites will open up bureaus around the world and cover news effectively.

Gapper concludes with this:

"The question for national and international reporting is not whether city papers survive but whether news organizations such as The New York Times do. Clearly, if they did not, and blogs were left alone to provide coverage of Washington and Iraq, there would be a problem.

"My working assumption, in more ways than one, is that consolidation -- or, more accurately, eradication -- of local newspapers will strengthen the editorial position of the remaining elite: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Financial Times, etc. I also assume the elite will find some way to cover its costs. Here's hoping, anyway."

A few thoughts. The Internet has shown that there are too many news organizations. Breaking news is mostly consumed on the Web, or perhaps TV or radio. Feature stories are often found in blogs, magazines, other media forms. But we do know this: A robust and diverse media is absolutely essential.

What model will be profitable? Will I continue to get my copy of the FT or local newspaper in the mornings? Will we have trusted news sources covering important global and local events? How will news organization turn a profit -- news organizations are, after all, for-profit organizations. Should they be? I'm not an advocate of government funded media. We've seen the disaster that is in China, Russia (where killing journalists has become sport), and so on.

Well, lots of questions, no answers, and a lot of hoping.

NYT Next?

And it looks ugly for the New York Times. Here's what I propose. Instead of a separate blog post for every bankrupt newspaper, let's just assume major print media will be hit really, really, really hard in 2009 and will struggle to ever regain their former prominence.

MarketWatch.com reporting that the New York Times Warns of a Challenging 2009.

The company in November cut its quarterly dividend by 74% in an attempt to decrease its debt.

Over the last few months, it has cut jobs and reduced other costs. Last month, New York Times said October ad revenue at its newspapers fell 17.2% on continued weakness in print advertising. Classified sales dropped nearly 35%.

In the third quarter, New York Times Co.'s total advertising revenue dropped 14%. Classified-ad sales plunged 29%.

Merry Christmas.

Tribune Chapter 11

In case you haven't seen the news, Sam Zell couldn't rescue Tribune, a premiere media brand, from the prospects of bankruptcy.

From MarketWatch.com

Tribune Co. said Monday that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to restructure its nearly $13 billion debt load, a move that dramatically underscores the dire circumstances clouding the near-term future of the newspaper industry.

The future is grim for media companies. Some might argue traditional media are not unlike other old business models like automotive industry (at least Detroit) -- unable to be nimble and able to change business models fast enough to compete in rapidly changing global marketplace. It's painful to watch. Yes, call it short-sightedness on the part of media executives. Even "forward looking" media companies like Time Warner wasn't able to make headway with AOL, which has resurrected itself a bit and is now making a somewhat implausible attempt at Yahoo!

You don't see government running out to rescue traditional media. But, the day's not over ...

In the most recent issue of BusinessWeek (subscription might be required to view) Jon Fine made his 2009 media predictions. He didn't have to wait for today's news to already see his first prediction come true.

"It gets much worse before it gets better. Marketers use the downturn to revamp (and reduce) ad spending. At least one recent, heavily leveraged media deal—Tribune, Univision, Clear Channel, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I could go on—goes bankrupt."

And then this from Lee Gomes in Forbes, Dec. 4 issue. His point is that even Web properties are not guaranteed endless riches.

"A cautionary tale involves MySpace, which, according to Hitwise, gets 4% of all Web traffic. MySpace owner News Corp. doesn't break out the numbers, but the unit that includes MySpace and other online divisions lost $101 million in the quarter that just ended, on revenue of $719 million. Even Gannett does better than that."

So where does all this leave us if old media fails? I would argue we'll become less informed, or perhaps worse, informed by even more narrowly minded views. Example, Arianna Huffington is fond of advocating that journalists are not obligated to tell both sides of the story, that one-side issues reporting is valid and needed. Sorry, I don't agree. I don't need someone to tell me who to vote for, how to think or what side of an issue I should be on. I need fair and balanced reporting that informs, not dictates.

Anyway, a different topic but not completely disconnected from Tribune's travails. Let's hope old media can figure out how to remain a valued source of information gathering and sharing in a new media era.