For the fourth year running, the European Publishers Council (EPC) is delighted to bring to its members, key policy makers and interested journalists the latest data in global media trends. A free copy is available to the press on request.
The 500 data sets and 60,000 words of analysis tell the story of a seismic transformation in content development and publishing for newspapers and magazines:
Social Media: Reading an article or news story is in the top five activities on Facebook: publishers have proactive social media strategies and social media advertising is on the increase.
Mobile: Publishers are adopting “mobile-first” strategies to deal with changes in competition and consumer behaviour – interaction and attention; but this affects profoundly production, distribution, monetisation, and content development. Most consumers will be using their smartphones to access media content by 2019, going straight to specific articles (not the publication’s home page) and getting there via social media and not by search. When they get there, today’s consumers want high quality, personally relevant content including on-demand video clips. In the US, people using mobile to read newspapers has gone from less than 40% in March 2014 to more than 70% in March 2015.
Advertising: internet advertising is poised to overtake TV advertising but adblocking is a serious and expanding threat to publishers' revenues as it spreads from web to mobile.
EPC Executive Director Angela Mills Wade commented: “Amidst these data sets, there are reasons for optimism and excitement about the future, despite the challenges regarding global ad-spend for newspapers and ad-blocking on web and mobile sites. There are many new opportunities, notably in mobile and social media, and, arguably, greater opportunity than ever to make content appealing and accessible to record numbers of consumers of all ages via their smartphones.”
Over the next year or so, the media will be subject to new and revised EU regulations in the fields of copyright, data privacy, audiovisual media services, text and data mining, and Big Data.
Angela continued: “We hope that our Global Media Trends Book will help to steer regulators and opinion formers towards appropriate and market-driven regulations based on actual worldwide digital content and usage trends. The press is a unique sector, where our values are as important to us as our profits but we do not operate on a level playing field with the big, techno-media players. Professional journalists need to be paid, trained, resourced and legally protected by their publishers. Quality content is expensive. However, regulators can help protect a free press by taking our important differences into account when legislating and making sure our pursuit of the provision of reliable information, analysis and entertainment is helped, not hindered to the benefit of all in Europe’s Digital Single Market. For in order to perform our vital role in society, our traditional media need to be financially viable.”
The EPC would like to thank Martha Stone and the World Newsmedia Network for another year’s excellent collaboration. We would also like to thank the 60 contributing research companies for their ongoing support of this valuable resource for publishers, researchers, academics and media industry stakeholders.