The big balancing act
Where are SA’s media companies with their Plan B?
Media companies all over the world are engaged in life-or-death battles as they race to transform themselves in a rapidly digitising world. Some are having more success than others
Where are SA’s media companies with their Plan B: moving their audience online and monetising it? Will they find a way to make online news work for them before their legacy media fizzle out? How long have they got? For the established media companies, shifting from traditional to online media is like trying to change the wheels of a moving train when you are not even sure you have the right spanner. They have to keep their traditional platforms running, as they are still their main source of revenue. But at the same time, they have to change the way they work to build an online audience and revenue stream.All the while revenue is falling and online giants like Google and Facebook are eating more of the advertising pie, so they have to cut costs. But cut too much, and they can’t produce the unique content on which their audiences rely. It’s a delicate tightrope balancing act, from the old to the new. Not that they have much choice. Among SA newspapers and magazines, print audiences a...
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