Gilbert: Only 1 In 10 'Old Media' Will Survive

DALLAS -- Fewer than one in 10 traditional media outlets are likely to survive, Clark Gilbert, president and CEO of a Salt Lake City digital media company, suggested to those gathered at the Local Mobile Advertising Conference here Tuesday. Those that do, he said, will have to more completely embrace the digital age.

Gilbert, a former Harvard Business School professor, moved from academia to journalism last year, taking over the Web presence for The Deseret News and the television and radio stations owned by the same company. He later brought the print newspaper itself under his wing, overseeing a reorganization that slashed 43 percent of the paper's editorial staff and merged its reporters with those at the company's TV and radio stations.

Gilbert told how he quickly molded Deseret's Web strategy into an entity with its own staff, recruiting employees with experience in the Internet world rather than in traditional journalism.

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And that, he said, is one of the keys to success -- and survival.

"What I find repeatedly is that the traditional medium overwhelms" when Web sites are simply an arm run inside the newspaper or TV station, he said. "And that will always make sense (to the traditional medium) ... until you're dead."

To build an effective digital presence, media companies must build separate divisions with their own profit and loss statements, separate sales teams, separate physical locations and at least some employees brought in from outside the industry, according to Gilbert.

But, he said, media executives are still fighting the research that shows that. "Optimistic about the industry? No, not at all," he told those gathered for the conference organized by Borrell Associates, an advertising consulting firm.

Gilbert told how using his strategy at the media company owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has led to success. The TV station's Web site (KSL.com) now boasts a 64 percent market share, garnering enough monthly traffic to beat the local Craigslist site, he said. It is now the top website in Utah, he said, with the newspaper's site ranked second.

The company is also expanding into deal-of-the-day marketing, he said. Deseret has launched group deal and last-chance deal models and plans to roll out two other types soon, he said. "They're growing rapidly."

However, Gilbert warned media executives not to team up with companies that want to harvest the email addresses of users attracted to the site. Such companies can simply collect the email address -- and perhaps ride the coattails of the medium's trusted brand -- then break off after six or eight months and siphon the business away, he said.

Traditional media have valuable brands and promotional abilities, he said. "Unfortunately a lot of media companies are just giving those assets away," as they chase ad revenue, he said.

Gilbert said his company has also moved into technology that lets advertisers track in virtually real time how effective their ads are.

In other presentations Tuesday:

• Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, reminded the audience that, despite everything, print newspapers and even the old-fashioned Yellow Pages books remain potent advertising outlets. About 75 percent of all adults still read a newspaper at least once a week, he said. And the Yellow Pages are a $9 billion industry. "That's the point at which people are ready to buy and advertisers want to be there."

• Perry Sook, president and CEO of Nexstar Broadcasting Group Inc., said his company has seen 16 straight quarters of growth after embracing a strategy of creating Web communities rather than websites. He said that local broadcast news is the most popular content for mobile surfers. "The future of television is the best available screen."

• Stan Richards, principal and creative director of The Richards Group, an advertising agency, pointed out that only one in four Americans now surf the mobile Web, arguing that large growth remains ahead. "We know the future is mobile."

• The amount spent on local mobile advertising will grow from $510 million this year to $13.7 billion in 2015, according to research by Borrell. National mobile advertising will increase from $5.9 billion this year to $30.9 billion in 2015, according to the Borrell.