Most of the traditional media's attempts to compete with new and digital media have been too little too late. Does your case study support this view?

Most of the traditional media's attempts to compete with new and digital media have been too little too late. Does your case study support this view?

The case studies which I have studied to answer this question are the news and film industry. Taking into consideration the impact new and digital media has had on these industries and the futile efforts of traditional media to compete with it, proves that traditional media has done 'too little too late' as the media has now moved on to a more universal and popular platform.

The news industry is a clear example of the failure of traditional media to contest with new and digital media. Initially, throughout the 1900's, newspapers made millions selling their broadsheet copies to customers, with the print format being the only credible and readily available source of news at the time. Once Web 2.0 became a household staple after 2000, newspapers such as The Sun used it as a form of advertising for their broadsheet format, offering free news in the hope that this would attract broadsheet sales. However, the exponential growth of the internet globally was underestimated by newspapers and as a result, broadsheet sales and industry profits have been continuously in decline since the emergence of the internet, since people now have online news readily available across all of their devices, proven by Newscorp UK making a loss of £3.5 million in 2014.

The industry's response to this decline in sales as a result of online news was to introduce paywall subscription services to their online websites, with the Sun reaching over 225,000 subscribers following this format. However, despite this, it is evident that newspapers have waited too long to introduce paywalls, as people are now accustomed to receiving news for free, an issue recently sparked by Rupert Murdoch's remarks that the BBC are too 'dominant' and that their provision of free news is a 'threat' to the industry. Similarly, newspapers have tried to adapt to new and digital media through the technological convergence of their product, with all major news providers now having 'apps' in an attempt to attract paywall subscribers through their handheld devices. However, the fact that the Sun has so many subscribers yet it's parent company is operating at a loss proves that the attempt at competing with new and digital media has been a failure.

Similarly, the traditional media's failure to keep up with new and digital media has resulted in the death of local news. Following the newspapers decline in broadsheet sales due to free news being provided online, newspapers decided to provide more global news in at attempt to regain broadsheet sales, for example wars in places such as Syria and natural disasters such as in Haiti in 2011 have been substantially covered by reporters. However, once again the global nature of the internet has meant that anyone can find news about foreign countries for free easily online, meaning the attempt to attract sales from a more global audience and take advantage of the UK's multiculturalism has failed. The consequence however is that the industry has seen a serious decline in local news as local journalists and newspapers can no longer generate the broadsheet sales to continue. For example the Reading Post, Readings local newspaper, discontinued its broadsheet version after 49 years and now only provides news online, though it covers a far smaller spectrum due to cuts. 

However, it may be argued that in certain aspects traditional media's attempts to compete with new and digital media have been successful in some aspects. Across all media platforms, brand recognition is a vital part of the provision of news as it offers the consumer a sense of credibility if they trust the brand. Media Magazine's 'Word on the Tweet' article argues that Newspapers are successful in that they hold brand recognition with consumers, proven by the fact that the Daily Mail twitter account has 955,000 followers on twitter. Therefore, although newspapers may not be economically monopolising new and digital media, they still possess a substantial amount of power in providing and verifying news online.

In the film industry, traditional media has once again failed to compete with new and digital media. Like the news industry, the film industry failed to anticipate the extraordinary development of the internet, causing the film industry to massively under-regulate it, as film makers never saw it as a potential threat to the giant box office. However, the internet's revolution of the media globally has lead to box office films now being illegally pirated online immediately after release on websites such as 'Letmewatchthis', which receives over 3 million views a day, allowing people to which films for free online and costing the US box office a total of 20.5 billion a year, and caused a 5.1% drop in global cinema attendance in 2014. 

The industry has only recently began to take action against illegal film sharing online, with president Obama looking to make the 'Stop Online Piracy Act' a law in the US, whilst we have also seen file sharing websites such as 'Megaupload' and 'The Pirate Bay' be taken down in recent years. The film industry's attempts however to bring consumers back to the traditional form of cinema to watch films have been futile, as the internet now is far too large to be properly regulated; as even with major file sharing sites being taken down, it has not prevented piracy online or new sites doing the same thing, evidenced by the 32% drop in 15-25 year olds in the US now going to the cinema, as the 'digital generations' are now accustomed to watching films online for free.

In contrast, an alternative argument is that traditional media has successfully competed with new and digital media. The internet arguably has simply given the film industry the perfect platform in which to market their films to the 'lucrative' 15-35 year old target audience as most people this age are online. The industry has utilised the internet by releasing online trailers, adverts, websites promoting their films and interactive user generated content such as the Wolf of Wall Street's 'Make a GIF' campaign, all features used to encourage audiences to return to traditional media, the cinema. The film industry's success in using new media to attract audiences is proven by increasing box office profits, with the global box office earning 35.9 billion in profits in 2013, up from 34.7 the previous year, linking to the idea of hegemony as the elite use new media to indoctrinate us into going to the cinema.

In conclusion, looking overall at my two case studies it is abundantly clear that traditional media has completely failed to compete with new and digital media and their attempts to keep up with it certainly have been 'too little too late' as new media continues to expand and revolutionise the media whilst traditional platforms are left in its wake.