The news media is no longer protected high-margin industry it once was. Where before a few players dominated each channel, we are faced with the reality where we have to innovate or die. For organisations that are not used to inventing and delivering new products and services, we can take…

The last few weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster for news publishers in Australia as the battle to strong-arm the proprietors of the internet got real. For those not familiar with the situation, the Australian government has been working on a media bargaining code for the last 3…

What is a strategy and how much of a role should it play in a newsroom? As a management concept, strategy has been the subject of many books and consultant’s dreams. A nebulous concept that despite two-day retreats and a mountain of yellow post-it notes can feel like an annual…

In the final article of the series “Slaying the media sustainability monster,” I look at the role of and importance of technology as a critical part of the solution. The series so far has touched on the input and ability of various role players in the ecosystem. From governments providing…

In a previous column addressing the funding issues facing the media industry, I looked at how we might structure media companies and create investment incentives through structured tax breaks. I looked at how arguments have been made to create a new hybrid class of company and how tax incentives could…

There is no conclusive view of just how much a CEO’s input can affect the performance of a company. Studies flip-flop between huge impact (50% influence on revenue) and almost no impact at all. Given the number of variables that go into such studies, and across so many industries, it’s…

In this third article of the series “How to slay the media sustainability monster”, we explore the challenge of the leaky talent faucet that has plagued the industry for the last decade. More specifically, we can define the problem as “How might we reclaim lost editorial skills, build capacity and…

In a previous column, I attempted to articulate the exact nature of the problems standing in the way of building an ecosystem that could aid the recovery and progress of the media industry. To recap, the four problem statements were: How might we structure financially independent news media, so that…

It’s a well-beaten drum that the news media industry is in trouble. Apart from a few standout winners operating at the global level, the majority of news organisations have a sustainability crisis on their hands. Despite this consensus, we’re lacking in actionable steps that we could take to repair and improve our status quo. In a series of articles, I will offer some practical suggestions as to how we can reimagine the environment so that we do more than survive. In this first take, we look at articulating the problems so that we may present some concrete solutions down the line.