GILES RAFFERTY, Corporate Communications and Media Adviser
It is well understood that the media industry has been experiencing significant technological disruption with the emergence of digital, online and social media platforms. The recent 2022 Digital News Report, by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford, indicates the various shocks of the last few years, including Coronavirus, have accelerated structural shifts towards a mobile and platform-dominated media environment. Against this backdrop the media sector is continuing to adapt and adopt business models that are right for the digital news age and the changing appetites of newer and different audiences.
The 2022 Digital News Report reveals younger audiences increasingly rely on digital and social media as sources of news and display a weaker identification with and loyalty to news brands. If we look at Digital Natives, people aged 25–34, who largely grew up in the information age but before the rise of social networks and Social Natives, people aged 18–24, who largely grew up in the world of the social, participatory web there are increasing levels of news distrust and avoidance, see Figure 1.
Figure 1
Qualitative research in the 2022 Digital News Report indicates the under 35s feel the news can have a negative impact on their mood and, more recently, there has been too much coverage of Coronavirus and politics. In addition, the under 35s avoid news because they perceive it to be biased or untrustworthy and often question the agenda of news providers, including mainstream brands that champion impartial journalism.
More broadly consumption of traditional media, such as TV and print, continues to decline, with online and social consumption not making up the difference as interest in news has fallen sharply across markets, from 63% in 2017 to 51% in 2022. News access in Australia also continue to decline, despite a slight 2% recovery in newspaper consumption, off a low base in 2021. News accessed via smartphones in Australia remains stable at 61% but computer access to news continues to decline at a rapid pace, down 5%, see Figure 2.
Figure 2
According to the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, more than 230 Australian newsrooms have downsized since January 2019, of which 70% were in the regions. Australian Community Media closed over 20 regional newspaper titles in 2021 and in total 37 newspapers closed or contracted. This follows NewsCorp’s decision to mover over 100 regional and community tiles to digital only in May 2020, while also closing 14 titles.
It is not, however, all doom and gloom in the media sector. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code came into effect in March 2021. It is credited by ACCC Chair, Rod Simms, with delivering “over $200 million per annum into journalism”, although it has also been criticised for not including smaller media companies and lacking transparency. The Australian Government has also announced a total of $10 million in grants to support the provision of public interest journalism in regional Australia. A total of $8 million is available for hiring cadets and $2 million is available for upskilling journalists.
There has also been an increase in people prepared to pay for online news in Australia, which is up 5 percentage points to 18%. More broadly, however, the percentage of people prepared to pay for online news is leveling off at around 17% and the average age of a digital news subscriber is almost 50. For younger audiences, social media and messaging networks continue to replace news website as primary sources of news, with 39% of the social natives across 12 markets surveyed in the 2022 Digital News Report using social media as their main source of news. The breakdown of the use of social media as a news source for Australians is in figure 3 below.
Figure 3
In a world of fewer publications and fewer journalists, (the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance estimates up to 5,000 Australian journalists have left the industry over the past decade), how do companies promote their investment case to new and existing investors and audiences through earned media. If you play at the big end of town, in the ASX top 50, you are likely a major employer, that creates a lot of value for investors and big super funds, so will attract the attention of business and mainstream journalists.
As we move into the realms of mid to smaller cap companies there will often need to be a significant share price response or exotic angle to corporate new flow to get cut through with national publications. This is also true of metro and local titles but here there will also need to be a local human intertest angle to the story – are you creating jobs, cutting jobs, delivering world/industry firsts? Simply doing a good job of running a company and delivering against strategy and forecasts may not be rewarded with media interest.
The concentration of traditional and mainstream media on big companies or controversial corporate stories has created space for new news platforms to emerge and gain relevance, initially amongst retail shareholders but increasingly amongst brokers and more sophisticated investors.
New sources of corporate news, like the ausbiz online video platform born out of the demise of Sky Business News in 2018, offers broad coverage from ASX Top 50 to small and microcaps. Stockhead is a proudly ASX small cap focussed online news platform founded in 2017 and bought in May this year by NewsCorp to extend its coverage of this end of the market. Stockhead retains its own brand, management and editorial staff. There may even be opportunities for earned media at The Market Herald, a much more well heeled relative to the HotCopper investor discussion board.
Any small to mid-cap media engagement strategy should also look to specialist and trade publications as ways to build profile and promote a company’s story through earned media. This coverage can then become a reference point when pitching a company’s story to the mainstream media. A media strategy should also encompass investor webinars, whether they be owned webinars run by the company or invitations to present at 3rd party webinars such as the ASX Small to Mid-Cap Conference or CommSec’s Executive Series. And with the rise of social media as a primary source of news for the under 35s, all news coverage and content for investors and media audiences should be promoted across a company’s social media channels.
There is no magic wand that can be waved to guarantee a company will get earned media coverage. To create media opportunities it is important for companies to have a well-developed media engagement strategy that takes into account the companies investment case, target audiences, delivery against strategy and performance against targets. At FIRST Advisers we have an integrated business model that allows our Media and Financial PR team to leverage off our Investor Relations team to ensure our media advice supports and promotes our clients’ investment cases.
