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Technology is rapidly compressing the digital value chain of the production and distribution of media, said John Zelenka, ’02, senior vice president of business development at Tribune Media Services. “Business models are being flipped on their heads and are constantly changing,” said Zelenka, a panelist at the Media in the Midwest panel, sponsored by the student-led Media, Entertainment & Sports Group, at Harper Center on May 12.
This compression provides an excellent opportunity for MBAs to enter the sector, he said. “In a world like that, you really need to have some strategy,” Zelenka said. “You’ve got to put analytics and some disciplined thought against what this all really means. You need to be able to clarify and simplify your thoughts, filter out noise, and think through what the strategy and some of these new business models are going to be.”
Carson Conant, CEO & president of Mediafly, urged MBAs to abandon antiquated business models based on pre-digital media. “Leverage everything you learn here,” Conant said. “You have such an interesting body of knowledge. Allow it to be applied to something that hasn’t been done, or allow it to be applied to data that in the past you were told was impossible or bad.”
Despite the potential for worldwide listenership thanks to the Internet, Chicago Public Radio carefully identifies the audience for its programming, said Daniel Ash, MPP ’08, vice president of strategic communications for the nonprofit. “Not everybody in the world is our audience,” Ash said. “As distribution channels have broadened, we’ve been really disciplined about our focus. We say, ‘Don’t let this broad distribution channel freak you out. Just get focused on who our audience is and go for that audience.’”
Christine Pawlak, aka DJ Electra, uses critical reading analysis to distill her content to its “pure essence” as midday host on Q101.1 FM Radio in Chicago, she said. “I make it as brief, bright, and tight as possible,” Pawlak said. “When I go to the microphone, it doesn’t matter to me if I’m speaking to Chicago or the entire world. I’m talking to one person – the one who is listening to my radio program. I’m incredibly focused on creating my content for that one person.”
The iPad is not going to save traditional media, said Stephen Sanger, ’05, senior director of business development for Tribune Interactive. “There are bigger structural issues going on in the print space than to say a new technology is going to save the industry,” Sanger said.
The ability to sell written content on the internet depends on the content and the audience, he said. “The tradeoff is that the Wall Street Journal charges for its content because if you are in banking and you don’t get the Wall Street Journal, you’re at a disadvantage versus everybody else in the investment banking or financial community who does get it,” Sanger said.
The same is not true for other publications, he said. “It’s a little more of a commodity,” Sanger said. “If I put up a [paid contact] wall, how is that going to impact my traffic? If my traffic goes down 75 percent with a paid wall, what does that do to my advertising dollars? Your ability to charge for it depends on your content.”
The panel illustrated why now is such an exciting time to enter the media industry, said John Clinton, a first-year student in the Full-Time MBA Program who co-chairs the Media, Entertainment & Sports Group. “There is no set answer to how to solve the problems now,” Clinton said. “Media is fusing with technology, and there are all these new business models out there. We have a chance to shape these business models.”
The panel, moderated by Emily Oster, assistant professor of economics, was the inaugural event of the student-led Media, Entertainment & Sports Group.
—Phil Rockrohr