Thursday, April 23, 2009

Rupert Murdoch "Gets It"

Newspaper maven Rupert Murdoch just appointed Jonathan Miller, recently of AOL, as his head of digital operations. This includes a wide range of products, including MySpace, Photobucket, and Hulu. Miller's job is to make sure Murdoch's News Corp.'s online assets are "central to, not separate from, the enterprise."

Instead of newspapers bitching about how the Internet is killing them, perhaps they'd do better to look to the vision that Murdoch seems to possess. Yes, old Rupert "gets it" -- media convergence is here to stay.

Now you tell me: if a 78-year-old Australian can figure it out, why can't the New York Times?

Newspapers that think their old tried and true model (sell ads, build subscription base, take money to the bank) will work in the 21st Century are sorely mistaken. And, no, it's NOT enough to just put your content up online and sell a few Internet banners. It's time for a fully integrated strategy. Newspaper content has always been superior. How about starting THERE and leveraging that as an advantage?

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