In today’s competitive digital media landscape, media organizations struggle to reach and influence new audiences online successfully and mobile while expanding traditional channels such as television. This can make it difficult for media organizations to build sustainable businesses.
It’s no longer enough to create quality content and hope people will see it. Today, it’s more important than ever to target the right audiences with the right messages at the right times.
In this piece, we’ll explore seven challenges modern media companies face and what they can do to stay in business.
1. Limited Attention Span
Studies show that the average person’s attention span decreases with the increased use of technology. A goldfish has a longer attention span than an average human.
According to a study conducted in the early 2000s, humans’ attention spans have decreased from 12 seconds to eight seconds.
What does this mean for the media today? It means people crave short, engaging content. So, it is unsurprising that content creators have obliged by churning out brief, digestible content.
An article must be concise, engaging, and visually appealing to resonate with the traditional media. The reduced attention span of viewers has also made covering complex stories a challenge and contributed to the rise of opinionated “clickbait” content.
Content must be relevant and address a current challenge or question to captivate an audience’s attention.
2. Social Media and Fake News
Since the rise of the internet, social media has rapidly evolved and has dramatically changed how people consume information. This social movement has made people less inclined to consume traditional outlets such as television or radio and instead turn to social media for their news.
News organizations have faced the challenge of finding new ways to distribute content while adapting to the shift to digital media. However, another challenge has been the rise of false news or “fake news.”
Fake news has become a global problem in the news industry. With the 2016 presidential election, the term has gained popularity in the United States and spread beyond politics. A recent example is a COVID-19 pandemic – 80 percent of consumers reported having seen fake news on the outbreak, illustrating how widespread the problem is.
The spread of false information is accessible via social media due to how news is transmitted. The press must maintain a solid social media presence to address false news circulating online and on social media swiftly.
3. The Changing Advertising Landscape
With ad blockers and ad blocking software on the rise, advertisers and media platforms have noticed a drop in revenue due to reduced ad views. This has led advertisers to adopt new strategies to reach audiences effectively and leverage new opportunities to boost revenue.
For example, recent trends show that video ads are more effective than banner ads. Content creators have taken advantage of this and have started producing more high-quality videos to attract advertisers and boost their brands.
Influencer marketing has altered the advertising industry. As a result, ad dollars have shifted from television to digital platforms and influencer marketing. This is challenging for the media to monetize their content. They are diversifying to other forms of monetization like subscriptions, e-commerce, and event sponsorships.
The modern media must not shy away from this obstacle. Instead, they should embrace these new advertising methods to generate sustainable revenue.
4. Piracy and Copyright Infringement
Another dilemma for the modern media is piracy and infringement of copyright.
Piracy refers to the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material for profit. It can be through physical or digital means and includes illegal streaming of videos or sharing of movies or music files on peer-to-peer file-sharing software.
Piracy is highly damaging to media companies because it directly hurts the revenue generated from their copyrighted materials. This negatively affects the media companies’ ability to create content in the future as they struggle to earn back the money lost from piracy.
Digital copyright infringements are another source of piracy in the digital era. Access to copyrighted materials has become more accessible due to the widespread availability of the internet and smartphone penetration worldwide.
Digital piracy also takes many forms, such as illegal streaming of videos or sharing movies or music files on peer-to-peer file-sharing software.
The advent of blockchain technology has helped curb instances of digital piracy by providing solutions to reduce the possibility of copyright infringements significantly. Blockchain can effectively stop the illegal streaming of copyrighted content by licensing it to an identified user for a fee.
The licensing of content improves the monetization of content because users can view the content legally instead of illegally streaming it for free as they would have in the past.
The Bottom Line
The Internet changed many things in our lives. With the rise of smartphones and high-speed internet connections, media consumption has also transformed significantly and will continue to do so as technology evolves further.
This transformation creates challenges for traditional media to succeed in the digital age. But with some critical thinking and innovation, the traditional media can thrive.
