Researcher's Bio
Jim Smith
Vice President of Research, Morris Communications
Jim Smith began his newspaper career in 1980 as research manager at the Florida Sun-Sentinel and in 1990 became vice president and director of marketing for the Sun. In 1998, Smith joined Morris Communications as director of research and currently serves as vice president of research and development. In this role he coordinates Morris’s Innovation Group, charged with reinventing the company’s business model. Smith is on the board of directors for Newspapers Association of American (NAA) Research Council and he is the 2009 recipient of the NAA Research Award of Merit. Smith received a master’s degree and doctorate in Demography and Urban Planning from Cornell University.
Forum Leader
Esther Thorson
Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, Missouri School of Journalism
"It's the Economy Stupid . . . and the Technology, and the Audience, and the Advertisers, and . . . Solving Them All with No Time and No Money"
The characterization of web advertising as being dramatically less profitable than print advertising is fundamentally flawed, Smith argued. He presented figures from Morris print publications and websites which showed that revenue per page view is the same for online and in print.
“The internet doesn’t underperform print in revenue per page, it merely generates far fewer page views,” Smith said.
Smith pointed to newspaper circulation, penetration, and advertising trends which are “pervasive and uniformly down.” Broadcasting and satellite media provide entertainment and sports content newspapers cannot match. The internet provides immediacy and depth which printed newspapers cannot match. Many of printed newspapers’ advantages have ceased to exist. One of the remaining advantages is the portability of newspapers, but digital readers and mobile devices are eating into that.
As a result, Smith said, “Saving the old business model is not an option. Our only recourse is to slow the decline in print and to accelerate the transition to a new business model.”
One element of the new business model is to become the dominant ad sales force in the home market, said Smith. That includes not just selling a newspaper’s own products but others’ products, such as ads on Yahoo or Google, to local advertisers. “We want to be the internet solution to all of the businesses in our markets,” he said. In addition, Smith said, newspaper companies need to target small and medium sized local businesses, which newspapers have historically priced out of their business plans.
He added, “It isn’t about saving journalism but about saving communities and democracy – the concepts journalism is intended to serve. If newspaper companies can develop business models that accomplish the solution that newspaper advertising previously provided – enabling commerce – then they can survive and thrive. If they can’t do that, some other companies will.”
Contact Jim Smith, PhD, at 706-828-2936 or jim.smith@morris.com