local media

The Google News Initiative, the Local Media Consortium and the Local Media Association have teamed up to offer 50 scholarships to Elevate! 2019, the LMC and LMA’s first joint conference […]

Researchers predict $3 billion in ad spending for the next election cycle, but unless local media want to cede a big share of that to Facebook, they need to capitalize on the targeting resources available to them. Matthew Davis explains how local outlets can get a ground game with their present targeting capabilities, and what’s at stake if they don’t.

James Dolan, managing partner at Cherry Tree Companies, told attendees at Borrell Associates’ Local Online Advertising Conference that local media need to face the truth that if it isn’t digital, the market just doesn’t care. “Valuations are subjective,” Dolan says, but that doesn’t matter. “The market thinks digital has a future. The market thinks legacy media doesn’t have a future.”

As he looks at the future for local media companies, Steve Gray sees two kinds of companies: (1) Those that continue to focus on traditional media channels — newspaper, TV stations and radio stations — and shrink with the advertising spending on those media. (2) Those that morph into local media houses that can connect any advertiser with any audience through platforms, technologies and channels they own or don’t, to win dollars that are moving into digital advertising and marketing

Thanks to the growing ubiquity of mobile devices, a digital revolution is about to transform bricks-and-mortar retailing — a fast-breaking phenomenon that potentially poses the biggest challenge yet to the economics of local media companies.

Nearly half of all local advertising dollars are going to Internet pureplays. And while big national companies such as Google, Yahoo, Reach Local, Groupon, Autotrader and Zillow might help local businesses target customers, most of that ad money is leaving the market and doing nothing to boost the local economy. By spending with local media — companies that pay taxes and employ local residents — businesses can help flow more cash into their local markets.

Local media companies need to decentralize their digital ad efforts and put the control and technology in the hands of their local people, rather than rely on the “Industrial Age” practice of centralization, says Terry Heaton. “Centralized command-and-control groups amount to third-party ad networks, and what’s good for the network isn’t necessarily good for the local property. It doesn’t matter if such a structure is considered ‘best practices’ within the industry; it’s headed down a very long highway to inadequacy,” he says.

For local media companies, the benefits of big data are many, including a positive impact on the bottom line, but harnessing that data presents a challenge. Working with big data invariably means stitching together a solution among a disparate field of vendors, as well as creating an in-house team to analyze the data. Not to mention the potential legal problems. Part one of a three-part special report on local media and big data, looking at the promises and challenges of this fast-changing field. Read part one here. Read the full report here.

As local media companies eye the potential of big data for deepening their engagement with audiences and advertisers, they are learning just how messy, expensive, incremental and imperfect the process can be. In the first of a three-part special report on local media and big data, NetNewsCheck looks at the promise and challenges of this fast-changing field.

Despite Groupon’s post-IPO troubles and repeated dismissals of the deals space as dead, local media companies are still turning to daily deals as a viable revenue source. “The deals space has leveled off,” says Patrick Dillon, president and co-founder of Deal Current. “Now, it’s going to start growing again.”

What does Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post mean for local media companies? The Amazon.com founder knows how to user the data collected on users to his advantage and create relationships, and with the Post he can show other local papers, TV and radio stations how to use data to their advantage. Media strategist Mark Ramsey: “The relationship business is the problem-solving business. And before you can solve problems you need to know what the problems are, how to solve them, and who needs them solved.”