For local media companies, the benefits of big data are many, including a positive impact on the bottom line, but harnessing that data presents a challenge. Working with big data invariably means stitching together a solution among a disparate field of vendors, as well as creating an in-house team to analyze the data. Not to mention the potential legal problems. Part one of a three-part special report on local media and big data, looking at the promises and challenges of this fast-changing field. Read part one here. Read the full report here.
As local media companies eye the potential of big data for deepening their engagement with audiences and advertisers, they are learning just how messy, expensive, incremental and imperfect the process can be. In the first of a three-part special report on local media and big data, NetNewsCheck looks at the promise and challenges of this fast-changing field.
Millennials Still Want Their Newspapers
Despite the perception that the under-30 crowd is leaving newspapers and their websites behind for other digital news outlets, studies are finding that the newspaper is still a vital source of information for the millennials. Some 57% of those ages 18-34 read newspapers, in print or online, during the course of an average week. “There is no question that members of the younger generation tend to be more active in using digital media to seek and absorb information they consider relevant to their lives,” says Newspaper Association of America’s Jim Conaghan. “Newspapers continue to refine existing methods and invent new ones to reach younger generations through their digital platforms.”
R.I.P., American Press Institute
W. Lawrence Winter, American Press Institute president and executive director, 1987-2003: “Let’s be honest. This is not a merger. This is a takeover. And, from the ashes of API may someday rise a new [Newspaper Association of America] training organization of some kind, featuring, probably, Internet-based learning activities. But whatever it is, it will not be API.”
The Newspaper Association of America noted that the FCC’s proposed update of media ownership rules is nearly identical to the proposal put forth by the agency in 2007.
