Contrary to popular hype, user-generated content does not pose a threat to traditional media. The TV industry needs to move away from advertising dependency to an audience-participation business model. By 2043, the U.S. may not produce any more printed newspapers but until then the printed word can generate big profits.
Those are a few predictions from a new report on global media from accounting and consulting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP. The report was prepared by the firm’s Technology Media & Telecommunications group headquartered in Los Angeles.
These trends will vary in their impact on the local economy. “The increasing value of and consumer interest in user-generated content which I view as a corollary to reality TV will no doubt have, over time, a significant impact on the content produced in our Los Angeles market,” said Tim Lovoy, a partner in Deloitte’s L.A. office.
The report bases the future on present observation that “the majority of user-generated content is likely to remain mediocre, and thus of little interest or value.” As a result, “it is not likely to pose a major threat to the media industry.”
For TV, the report predicts continued declines in advertising dollars. While the established model for TV that viewers watch commercials in exchange for free access to programs still holds in the world’s developing economies, it has broken down for high-income consumers. These viewers prefer to pay for TV but demand more control of the programming.
To compensate the loss of ad revenue, TV producers will shift to audience-participation models. In Europe, TV shows have viewers call in at rates of up to $2 per minute. In the United Kingdom vote-based TV formats generated $458 million by charging for text message votes.
“The decline of the ad model will not have much impact on local production in the short-term more relevant issues to local production are cost and taxes,” said Lovoy. “However unless more meaningful metrics of ad efficacy are developed and embraced by advertisers and agencies, the decreased perceived value of televised content will result in even more emphasis on low-cost production, which will work to the advantage of areas where production costs are less than those in the L.A. area.”
TV’s Union Mess
Janitors who clean up after the stars at KNBC (Channel 4), KCBS (Channel 2) and KTLA-TV (Channel 5) have won an agreement allowing them to join a union.
Facilities Support Services Inc., the janitorial contractor that handles all three L.A.-based studios, signed an agreement so its janitors can join Service Employees International Union Local 1877. The union already bargains for more than 20,000 janitors in California.
“For a long time, janitors in the entertainment industry had been ignored, forced to clean up after the rich and famous while living in poverty themselves,” said Mike Garcia, president of SEIU Local 1877.
The news came as the latest result of SEIU’s long campaign titled “Justice for Janitors.” In connection with the campaign, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously last year asking the city’s entertainment industry to improve working conditions for its janitorial staff.
Times A-Changing
Tribune Co.’s Los Angeles Times has reorganized its newsroom to integrate content between its Web site and newspaper.
Current Business Editor Russ Stanton will fill the newly created position of Innovation Editor. The newsroom will become a 24-7 operation that will continuously break news online and then publish analysis and personality in print. Under the plan, every journalist on staff will write stories for both print and Web.
“Our philosophy going forward is ‘Break it on the web, expand on it in print,'” said Jim O’Shea, editor of the Times. “We have to change what we are doing online, and also in print, to better engage readers and users who can choose every day among myriad sources for their news and information. The old print publishing model by itself doesn’t cut it anymore.”
The changes come as result of the so-called Spring Street Project, an effort organized by the Times last year to explore ways to engage and grow its audience. It coincides with the launch of MyLATimes.com, a free personalized news feed service.
Not a Billboard
To promote its Magritte exhibit, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art bannered the streets with the artist’s self-conscious work “The Treachery of Images,” commonly known as “This Is Not a Pipe.” For the show’s closing weeks, the museum will put up a billboard that takes self-consciousness to new heights.
A billboard photo shows LACMA security guards sitting in a semi-circle looking at a derivative work, Eleanor Antin’s “This Is Not 100 Boots.”
It shows boots arranged in a semi-circle. On the next wall hangs the original “Treachery of Images,” which belongs to LACMA’s permanent collection.
“It’s a take on a work that in the exhibit that’s a take on a work in our permanent collection. So it’s kind of a telescoping image,” explained Allison Agsten, spokeswoman for the museum.
The image within an image will go up around President’s Day at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue The Magritte show, sponsored by the Lexus brand of Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. in Torrance, closes March 4.
Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.
