Publishing in the Knowledge Economy - DTI Home Page

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Publishing in the knowledge economy Issues for competitiveness unsold product which has to be returned and destroyed. It is also vital for publishers to look to the future The action points here supplement the ones concluding the section on achieving a better balance in revenue streams, above. Although publishers are right to stress the cost-effectiveness of the existing newstrade, and seek to protect it, they also need to tackle some of the obstacles to exploiting other routes to the customer and consider other collateral benefits, such as increased customer loyalty and waste reduction. Action points 13 Industry and distribution trade associations to continue to support independent CTNs with promotional campaigns, clubs and supply chain innovations. 14 Supermarkets must include magazines, newspapers and books in the supermarket code. This code also needs to be made more robust. 15 Build on existing initiatives in book supply chain arising from the report “Unlocking the Supply Chain’s Hidden Prize” – use this opportunity to inject fresh momentum. 110
Publishing in the knowledge economy Issues for competitiveness CHAPTER 17 The challenge of digital media 17.1 Strengths and opportunities Digital technologies are fundamental to the future of publishing. However, they affect different elements of publishing in relation to the customer and the nature of the product and the business model in different ways and at different speeds. The characterisation of formats in Chapter 12 in Part 1 is an attempt to capture some of this in relation to end customers. The broad conclusion from that would be that the segments most impacted by digital media are business to business and institutional publishing, but there are also significant impacts on broadsheet national newspapers and local newspapers. Arguably, consumer magazines and fiction books are the least impacted, although one should be careful to draw a distinction between lifestyle glossy magazines, general women’s, TV-related and celebrity weeklies on the one hand and interest focused magazines on the other, particularly those in more technology or youth-oriented segments. An overview of the responses of the industry to the Internet was given in Chapter 10. Our interviews revealed a pattern of attitudes that are related to the ways in which digital technologies have been exploited so far by the different segments of publishing. Many book publishers were affected by the financial losses incurred in their enthusiasm for CD-ROM development in the mid-90s, and so tend to be cautious in their approach to e-books, although not necessarily to print-on-demand. On the other hand, they perceive the Internet positively, mainly because Internet booksellers such as Amazon are seen to be growing the market and also selling books from the back list that would not find shelf space at retail. For them, the Internet – so far anyway – has represented an additional revenue stream, or at the least has not involved them in much cost. These generalisations do not apply to journal and STM publishers, who have moved much further down the track of delivering content electronically. For them, the Internet is a major channel to the customer, with correspondingly high expenditure and revenues. By contrast, many national newspaper and some magazine publishers have made very large expenditures on online development, and in most cases, although not all, they have seen virtually no revenue as a result. This is bound to colour their attitudes to developing content for broadband, for example. At a more basic level, the Internet and its underlying protocols and associated languages (TCP/IP, browsers, HTML, XML, email) have already had a huge impact on the processes of production and on the supply chain, even where the final product is a book, newspaper or magazine printed on paper, delivered physically to a retailer and carried home by the consumer. Regardless of attitudes to the potential of new platforms to generate revenue, publishers are positive about the benefits of these technologies within production and supply chain distribution. Many publishers have been enthusiastic in embracing new technologies and quick to see the opportunities both for increasing internal efficiency and for creating innovative products and services. The evidence is there on the Internet for all to see, and to a lesser extent on other new platforms such as interactive TV and mobile. Our questionnaire confirms this in showing 78% of respondents have a website for content delivery, rather than merely for information purposes. Attitudes to broadband, Digital TV and third generation mobile platforms will be explored in a later section. 17.2 Challenges A major challenge comes from changes in the competitive environment, particularly disintermediation (e.g. rights retention by authors) and competition from existing parts of the value chain, and from perceived sources of unfair competition, such as the BBC, the UK government and other public sector bodies. 17.2.1 The changing competitive landscape Digital technologies have created what might be termed a new competitive ‘hinterland’ for publishing companies. Whereas in the offline world, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio form separate ‘channels’ with their own modes 112
Page 1 and 2:
Publishing in the knowledge economy
Page 3 and 4:
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
The industry today Publishing in th
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58: The industry today Publishing in th
Page 63 and 64: Publishing in the knowledge economy
Page 99 and 100: Issues for competitiveness Publishi
Page 107: Issues for competitiveness Publishi
Page 141: Publishing in the knowledge economy
show all

Publishing in the Knowledge Economy - DTI Home Page

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?