Idiot
Although, I don’t call myself a journalist.
Having said that, Mr. Vesey has a very good point. The stuff that we, as bloggers, all talk about comes, in the main, from the newspapers, with radio and tv a distant second.
“I’m simply emphasizing that there are only a handful of news operations upon which all of us – the talk show hosts, bloggers, columnists and everyone else in Bermuda – depend on to know what is going on.”
One piece of advice I’d give the newspapers, as a layman, is to make sure that their websites are accessible to mobile users: BlackBerries, iPhones etc. I know I can’t read the Gazette on my Blackberry.
Also, leap on things like RSS feeds, Twitter, etc.
A Twitter feed for breaking news stories would invariably drive traffic to their sites, as would a Facebook page, with breaking news in the status updates… or even a group that receives messages in their Facebook inbox.
Hell, I’m sure some bright spark has figured out a way to have an entire newspaper as a Facebook application.
The old maxim of “Content is King” is still very, very true, and the newspapers have nothing BUT content. The job now, if they want to remain competitive and “enjoy a successful transition to the internet” is to take the lessons of the blogs, webcomics, forums, etc. and apply them TO that content. The Huffington Post is doing VERY well, as is The Daily Beast, Tina Brown’s latest endeavour. These are the examples our news sources could be working off of.
Is it possible? Of course it is. Will it take a paradigm change in how the folks running the papers think? Oh, HELL yes!
The future for Bermuda Broadcasting really looks dire. Perhaps there simply isn’t room for two local broadcasters (with 3 TV stations and multiple radio channels). Do Hott fm, Power 95, et. al, broadcast on the Internet to try to expand their reach and be more attractive to advertisers? We all know that the TV stations have virtually zero web content.
Meanwhile groups like IslandStats, Bermuda Sports Network and others have emerged to provide content and get advertising revenue. Go figure.
Well, it’s been completely mismanaged, apparently for 16 years!
Seems to me that when people buying ad space drops off, you need to make it a little less attractive.
As in: It’s too expensive to run a tv spot. We want to stay in business. It’s costing us money to run the business. We have no income from ad spots. If we lower the price, at least we’ll have SOME income, offsetting the costs that we HAVE to pay to stay in business.
As opposed to: If we lower the cost of an adspot, we’re losing money.
I dunno… that seems to make sense to me.
Last night, I’m watching the Amazing Race (as I hope everybody else is… best show on TV), and the only local ad spot I noticed was the Lindo’s one. Just blank screen (or station identifier graphic) in all the other places set for local ads.
At least VSB does their Community Calendar segment (not sure if people pay for those slots, if anything it’s probably at a lower rate). ZBM could at least go that route and see if they can get more people on board. I mean, people watch shows like TAR, CSI, NCIS. Make the ad options more appealing to those who may wish to purchase them, even if it’s lower prices or increased air time.
SHUSH! I’ve got it taped! Didn’t get to watch it last night!
Don’t tell me who got booted!
And yes, you’re right. LOADS of empty spots that could be filled with ads, were they financially viable. But they’re not.
At least they got rid of the “This is ZBM, TV 10″ bumps.
Every time one of those would come on, I’d yell “NO SHIT!”