https://www.axios.com/2024/06/21/news-media-disruption-will-lewis-washington-post
Everyone in media must understand the indisputable facts:
- Social media is dying as a reliable source of readers. First, these platforms gobbled up the attention traditional media once dominated. Then, they ate the vast majority of our revenue by micro-targeting ads to their massive audiences. Then, they seduced publishers with promises of riches to create content for them. Now, they're downplaying news. Facebook accounted for 30% of Axios traffic two years ago. It was about 1% in May!
- Speaking of traffic, almost everyone is losing it. A lot of it. At Axios, we're still growing ours, but that's an anomaly when you look across the landscape. Lewis found the Post has lost half its monthly audience since 2020. Imagine half as many people going to a car dealer or restaurant.
- Oh, it's going to get worse. Even if generative AI turns out to be wildly overhyped, which I don't think will happen, the one thing it has the potential to do amazingly well — if it solves its problem distinguishing fact from fiction — is synthesize and answer questions about the news.
- Consumer subscriptions are seen as a possible savior. It's a mirage. The people most likely to pay for news already have, to the benefit of The New York Times, the Journal and a few others who captured these readers early. The new reality: Each new subscription is harder than the last.