I understand the media business is under attack business model wise but when does this all stop? Newspapers, local tv, national tv, print media, magazines etc are all gutting staff.
I understand that the internet has changed things but sooner or later there isn't going to be anybody covering anything sports or news wise. Somebody has to go gather the actual content for it to be reported on.
I vividly recall watching Sports @11/11:30 on channel 7 in Calgary. We didn't think about it at the time but how good was that programming? 2-4 guys covering both local and national sports full time, on a 30 minute show daily.
Best of luck to all those involved, tough time to be looking for work in this business.
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Yeah heard about this earlier on QR77. Totally sucks and local sports took a huge hit. It's not just Calgary either, all across the country CTV laid off a lot of the sports reporters. Really feel bad for the people laid off, hopefully they can turn up somewhere else.
James Mirtle (formerly of the Globe and Mail) explains quite succinctly the state of the business and why he left the Globe and why his new endeavour with The Athletic is from his point the way to go. He's a great columnist, like Duhatschek and Johnson and could see the writing on the wall.
One of the things I’ve made an effort to do the last few years is learn more about the business side of how the media operates. A lot of people in the traditional media feel helpless the way the business is floundering, and my response to that was to get as much information as I could and at least understand the why behind those struggles. I was on audience committees at the newspaper, used analytics to track how stories performed in terms of engagement and followed industry trends in terms of business models.
What I learned along the way is there is a big disconnect between what the public believes is happening in media and what is actually happening.
Journalists are not losing their jobs because they are bad at what they do. The No. 1 killer of newspapers and websites – and radio and television appear to be next – is ad rates, in print and online. As Facebook and Google corner the ad market, and companies increasingly turn to social avenues to promote themselves, ad rates are dropping, often at exceptional rates.
In the (recent) past, you could attempt to make money online by going for scale – a high number of clicks – but that is becoming increasingly difficult. Even a very high-end website, like the New York Times, has online ad rates of about $8 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Most newspapers and websites are much lower than that – and the number seems to be falling every year.
Even very well read stories for large outlets may only generate $75 or $100 in revenue online. Not enough to pay a writer for a day’s work, let alone add in an editor, or any other costs associated with a large company producing content.
And those are the ones that hit relatively big. Others about more niche subjects, or that require a high level of sophistication, research and time, would generate even less revenue relative to the cost to produce them, in that click-per-penny model.
That, on a basic level, is why newspapers like the New York Times and The Globe and Mail are pursuing a subscription model. They have to in order to produce the content that makes those brands what they are. They have done the math that shows getting even two or three subscribers for a story is worth more than 20,000 hits.
The alternative is to chase web pennies – and bleed millions of dollars a year.
We know that won’t last. We know now many of those outlets will fail.
There has to be another way to get the coverage everyone is seeking. Like most things on the planet, the digital age is shifting paradigms and models of how we're used to the world functioning beneath our feet.
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James Mirtle (formerly of the Globe and Mail) explains quite succinctly the state of the business and why he left the Globe and why his new endeavour with The Athletic is from his point the way to go. He's a great columnist, like Duhatschek and Johnson and could see the writing on the wall.
There has to be another way to get the coverage everyone is seeking. Like most things on the planet, the digital age is shifting paradigms and models of how we're used to the world functioning beneath our feet.
Thanks for this! I have looked into the Athletic and I am familiar with James Mirtle's work. Currently that site is too Toronto focused for me at the moment but I will agree that for the sports world, the subscription model may work out better.
It's a tough business that is killing the traditional media and very very few people are doing the investigative reporting for the things that matter. Sports in a lot of ways is entertainment but the more important factors such governments, taxes, budgets, important trials, product recalls and so forth.
I have always been a media news junkie myself and was always amazed at the lack of knowledge about lot of day to day stuff of life for a lot of my friends.
Friends buying new homes in area's that have documented chronic school shortages, taxes at all level of governments going up, what is happening with local and national politics etc. It's almost as if most people are clueless until it actually hits them in the face.
Anyhow I got a little off topic but I am sad to see some good people and hopefully the coverage of the Flames and other local sports stays strong in some capacity.
Certainly doesn't help Bell when Rogers/Sportsnet are buying up all the major sports properties and leaving scraps behind for Bell. I barely click on TSN.ca anymore and that use to be my go to for anything NHL or sports related. Unfortunate as they have some of the very best personalities on their roster.
Its sad. I was a CBC employee that got effected a couple years back. Its a tough time to work in that industry. So many talented and great people losing jobs
I literally watch a hockey game, and then may leave the sports channel on briefly after the game. Otherwise, I use the internet to check stats, and may on occasion watch a sports channel for the hockey highlights (more and more rare).
I can see why the model simply does not work anymore.
This wasn't just CTV Sports in Calgary. Deeps cuts were made inside CTV Sports departments across the entire country.
Mirtle is great, and he made a gutsy move over to The Athletic. Don't blame him. But I worry a bit when I read smart journalists like him explaining how they only recently twigged to what is gutting the media business.
For goodness sake, ad revenues have been falling sharply for years. Advertisers moved to digital, plain and simple, and it really sped up post 2008, because kids these days are not reading print media, or watching TV networks. They are getting all of their info and a lot of their entertainment on their smart phones, phablets, whatever you wanna call them.
That's not exacly revelatory. The question is: How will media survive when digital ads pay 1/10th what print and broadcast ads pay? Answer: They won't. They aren't.
Viable alternative models exist, ie: crowd funded, user pay, non-profits supported by foundations. The Rebel (Ezra Levant's vehicle) is attracting piles of cash from supports and donors. The Athletic is trying do do something similar. God bless them all.
No one wants to pay for news, so the choices become fewer and quality gets worse and the public get dumber.
No one ever did want to pay for news. The newspaper industry used to pay the bills with classified advertising, until Craigslist and Kijiji took that away from them by doing it better. The TV and radio news business paid the bills with commercials, until the advent of Big Data made it possible for advertisers to see just how little value they were getting for money.
Meanwhile, there are more news sources now than ever before, and they are not spending most of their time just reprinting AP and Reuters stories, or following the one idiotic nonevent that the ‘24-hour news cycle’ has decided to shove down the whole world's throats that day. Losing these things does not make the public dumber; it merely takes away the illusion that they are informed about current events. They never were informed.
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The internet has made it mostly unnecessary to have a gazillion reporters who all ask the same questions after the games and write pretty much the same stories. A couple will do just fine, because technology will let their story spread.
Besides, most sports news are so formulaic it's ridiculous. In Finland one paper already has an AI who writes the game stories, and really there's no difference to what the "reporters" do. Which means: equally useless. I know how to read the box score, I watch the games myself or if I don't I can see the highlights. All I need on top of that is a place where I can talk with other fans. The reporters add nothing.
Sure, sometimes it's nice to get some fluff interview about what's been going on with some player personally, but it's not something I'd ever pay for anyway. I don't honestly care that much about the personal lives of the players.
Last edited by Itse; 03-29-2017 at 06:31 PM.
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Its sad. I was a CBC employee that got effected a couple years back. Its a tough time to work in that industry. So many talented and great people losing jobs
I can't imagine why you were laid off in an industry that relies on clear communication...
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What's lost is not the perfunctory reporting of scores and news conferences, but the sheer talent of a few talented wordsmiths who drew you into caring about the sport. Who created legends and spun lyrical elegies.
That is what is lost. The sport dies a little without its poets.
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Certainly doesn't help Bell when Rogers/Sportsnet are buying up all the major sports properties and leaving scraps behind for Bell. I barely click on TSN.ca anymore and that use to be my go to for anything NHL or sports related. Unfortunate as they have some of the very best personalities on their roster.
What major properties outside of NHL and Jays is bell missing out on?
They have the NFL.
They have the NBA.
THey have some MLB
They were part of the Olympic consortium in Canada
They have the CFL
World Cup 2018 is on TSN
World juniors is on TSN
champions league on TSN
All of the golf majors
All of the tennis majors
They also have their hands in regional rights for 4 NHL teams.
Rogers has National NHL which is obviously huge, and the Jays which is big when they are relevant and worthless when they aren't. So I don't see how Rogers snapping up everything from Bell. What am I missing?
What major properties outside of NHL and Jays is bell missing out on?
They have the NFL.
They have the NBA.
THey have some MLB
They were part of the Olympic consortium in Canada
They have the CFL
World Cup 2018 is on TSN
World juniors is on TSN
champions league on TSN
All of the golf majors
All of the tennis majors
They also have their hands in regional rights for 4 NHL teams.
Rogers has National NHL which is obviously huge, and the Jays which is big when they are relevant and worthless when they aren't. So I don't see how Rogers snapping up everything from Bell. What am I missing?
They certainly have some decent properties that I didn't think of as I've cancelled my subscription to TSN. But they also seem to have a lot niche or seasonal properties as well. Live programming is king and I feel like when you're missing out on the Blue Jays's 162 games or the NHL's 82 game seasons and I'm pretty sure Sportsnet carries at least half of Raptors games, then you certainly have a lot of time to try and fill. Regardless of what I think, they did make some pretty massive layoffs to TSN's staff back in 2015, so I suppose this was inevitable.
No one wants to pay for news, so the choices become fewer and quality gets worse and the public get dumber.
Actually it is the other way around. That is how Trump gets his talking points and his votera. Seems like a system that just needs to die already.
Ya it is sad about some talented people being laid off but it is not like they are hard hitting deep investigative journalists . It is sort of a luxury to have sports reporters . they could just broadcast games and highlights with no commentary period. Games, highlights etc. The could just close caption everything.