Traditional and digital worlds start to find where their magnetic poles attract

The digital market has been through its period where traditional media brands had seemed unable to make the digital market place viable for their media assets. And vice versa as the key digital players in market had been unable or unwilling to create market places where these brands can operate effectively.

This is clearly starting to change as both parties and mediums start to grow closer to one another and gain a clearer understanding of where and how to work together.

The reasons this had been so challenging were that the dynamics that drove each of the respective markets were so fundamentally different and incompatible.  This coupled with markedly different approaches and terminology for their respective media landscapes meant that the gaps between these media markets were significant and usually costly to address. Added to this there were usually limited returns for traditional media owners. However, recently there have been real signs of change as both markets and players get to grips with how each operates and more importantly how they can operate together.

The underlying driver of this change has been the widespread take up of broadband, which has enabled a much more engaging and content rich digital landscape to emerge. This has enabled serious traditional media owners to both play and operate in this market place and gain audience share that they can monetise. A by-product of the emergence of these types of media owners is that traditional and digital players have begun to establish where and how they can work most effectively together.

A notable example of this is in the TV market, where the broadcasters and especially major TV programs have really begun to find where their magnetic poles of attraction lie for them in terms of developing audience share and advertising experiences through digital.

Social media is emerging as the natural fit for the extension and promotion of these major TV properties with the Twitter voting mechanic being the most obvious example for enabling and deepening the audience engagement. The respective roles are clear with social media providing the discussion forums and extended communication mechanic for the TV program and the program providing the shared interest and impact only TV programs can.

It will be interesting to see how this relationship develops as TV broadcasters have already successfully leveraged their quality content to drive strong audience share and dominant revenue share in the VOD market. Through both strong TV and VOD properties broadcasters will find effective ways to continue to increase audience share and improve the monetisation of their content in digital, through the extended audience reach and engagement which social media has the ability to provide.  Social media’s ability to distribute content and deliver an aggregated audience means that both parties are likely to have a symbiotic relationship.

Another example of where these magnetic poles are starting to occur is between traditional publishers and mobile. Where the audience demand for quality content and news on the move, especially within the rich formats that tablet devices offer, has enabled publishers to serve a real audience demand in a market with clear potential for delivering viable commercial returns. As with TV and social media both parties are pulled together through a symbiotic relationship, which should help ensure that a sustainable market for both parties emerges. This development has also been informed by previous market experience, as the dominant digital players in the market have more than in the past sought to ensure that the required advertising and subscription models are developed in order to enable the development of a sustainable market.

So, a key route to success for traditional media owners will be in establishing where these magnetic poles lie for their business and then committing the resource and time to each particular opportunity to enable them to mature. Partly this will always involve a level of testing with some of the newer environments but more importantly it is the level of commitment and time that will offer the best chance of success.  This requires real expertise in order to ensure that media owners are focusing on the right areas of the market and creating the required digital assets and models to deliver the best chance of success.

The second requirement for success is finding ways to work with and influence the lead players within the respective sectors of operation, in order to help shape how that market develops.  The Guardian is a good example of a traditional media owner that has been particularly effective at this. Its aim is to to work with the lead players in the market in order to gain a clear understanding of the ecosystem, help shape the agenda and the advertising environments that they develop. Moreover, the ability to operate across platforms and devices that offer the best chance of enabling their scale based, international ad funded model to be a success.

The other alternative is to create your own ecosystems within digital. But as the Fast Company article, The Great Tech War of 2012 makes clear this is the highest stakes game in town to which few can enter but the implications of not entering into the game maybe Googletron made real.

So, in the future traditional media owners may well need to be even more ambitious and collaborative.