MARKETING MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

Marketing Management assignment

Marketing Management assignment

Introduction

Journalism, so the cry goes, is caught in a vicious downward spiral: As profits are chased, standards drop. And as standards drop, readers and viewers lose trust and turn away from mainstream journalism. Audience loss makes it harder to earn money from advertising, leading to further chasing of ratings and circulation goals, and further lowering of standards to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Marketing Strategy of Washington Post

At Washingtonpost.com, some print publications and a number of television outlets are proving, this stereotype of the effect and cause relationship between declining journalism standards and economics is far from a universal truth. The success of those who are thriving lies in not complaining about what is happening but rather in embracing it, addressing the changes and exploiting the new opportunities they open. (Aaker, 1999, 144)

Most of the changes journalists bemoan -- unprecedented media consolidation under corporate ownership, increased competition, new trends in audience usage of news, fragmentation -- reflect a transformation of the media environment, a change to which most journalists don't know how to respond. It is a fundamental change in the relationship between journalist and audience. The failure to adapt to this new relationship has a simple consequence: Many journalists will soon find themselves in another line of work.

This oligopolistic market allowed the foot soldiers of journalism to ignore the business side of their profession. While the senior editorial management has always had its eye on the bottom line, an aura was created, especially after World War II, in which American journalism was held up by journalists as having a higher social responsibility, involving the civic duties of preserving and defending democracy. It was a role seen as embodied in the First Amendment of the Constitution and one too important to be left to business. (Aaker, 1999, 144)

Lest business considerations contaminate the editorial product, journalists demanded, built, and prized a "Chinese wall" between the editorial and business sides of the newsroom. Egregious breaches of that wall, such as when the Los Angeles Times shared advertising revenue from a special section devoted to the opening of a new civic center with the civic center's management, are still held out as definitive statements of the evils of business.3 Somewhere in the process, journalistic conflict of interest grew to include any intrusion of commercial considerations into the editorial process. But it was an attitude that journalists could indulge in only as long as their business model was protected.

For television journalism, that protection ended with the flick of the switch that turned on CNN's lights in 1980. Suddenly the three networks were not alone. Today there is a veritable news traffic jam on TV screens across the country. The result has been that the slices of the audience pie for each channel have gotten smaller. No one has been spared, not even the fabled ABC News "Nightline" program, widely regarded as the highest quality broadcast journalism on the air. It has lost almost half its audience, from ...