DFM bloodletting continues

Your solution is that newspapers should not innovate and just stay in their respective lane while the business crumbles. Podcasts =/= radio, video =/= television. There is a lot that can be done with podcasts and video that cannot be done in the media you claim are analogous. While nobody seems to have made video on the internet work, podcasts are a goldmine when done well. And a lot of the good podcasts are done by journalists or are news oriented. Would have been perfect for newspapers.

 

I have been in new media for years and I have yet to listen to a podcast. I create and consume enough content while working to care enough to consume outside of work. But I'm open to hearing success stories and suggestions for creating and marketing podcasts, particularly where a small staff and limited resources are concerned.

 

Under what circumstances would it be a bad idea to jump from aDFM job? It is beyond the scope of my ima

Are ad rates in smaller metro markets support podcasting?

 

Ads are sold at mostly standard rates per 1000 listens.

Most of the top podcasts now are produced by public radio or other legacy news media, but there are many successful ones that were built up by people on their own. Social media and sites like AV Club drove the success of the independent places. It may be harder now after some of the excitement for podcasts has waned, but Pardon My Take is one of the most successful podcasts and it has been around for less than two years.

 

The problem isn't newspaper orgs venturing into different media - it is not doing it with the commitment required to do it well. The world isn't clamoring for for more half-assed podcasts or videos from reporters who have already spent eight hours reporting and writing. Newspapers have been crossing the "innovation stream" for almost 20 years, still unwilling to abandon print and unprepared to to charge ahead to digital. The result is an industry in hospice.

 

I did 30 seconds of research and found a website that says the standard podcasting rate is $25 per minute per 1,000 listens. Pardon my Take can generate well over 1,000,000 listens so that would compute out to over $25,000 for a one minute advertising sport.

But if you are in a market like Colorado Springs with a metro population of 600,000 ho many people can you reach. If you generate 6,000 listens a podcast you would be absolutely killing it rating wise but only making about $150 a one minute ad. How many podcasts in a smaller market could do that. Does podcasting only really work in national or very large local markets.

 

Agree. The problem also though is losing the talent. The big wigs don't consider the writers the talent which is unreal. They think a seasoned reporter isn't any better than a 22-yo out of college. You have to have good copy to engage and attain and retain readers. Know where your bread is buttered. Yes, new avenues of media are great if you do them right, but you need to start with what you do best and no one else can do. Newspapers can't do that because staffs have been hacked. I expect to do video now, but it's to compliment the piece not the other way around.

 

Editors are "the talent," too. Until they got laid off because they're not "content producers." But of course they are.

 

Yep and it's pretty unreal from when I started a decade ago that mistakes that made your paper seem like laughing stocks - or so we were told - have gotten into papers including in headlines etc. and now isn't really cared about. But I suppose they have to tell themselves basically "Oh well" because they have to let editors go to get those bonuses!

 

Deep layoffs began Monday at SoCal News Group

 

The only person I seek out in the entire group is Tom Hoffarth, just last night I was reading 3-4 of his Sports TV columns.