Content is King

"The content and quality of the media will continue to be the crucial factor in competing for the public." This was one of professor Guttorm Schjelderup prophecies at Nordic Media Days.

09.05.2008 - Torgeir Uberg Nærland (translated by Jessica Hartenberger)

The panel debate which Schjelderup participated in was entitled Where Does the Money Flow? and the theme was The Economic Reality of Tomorrow's Media.

From where will the media receive its profits in the future; which methods are most profitable; is the profit driver distribution or content; and which platforms will survive economically were among the questions debate leader and NRK journalist Anders Magnus posed to the panel.

In addition to Schjelderup, the panel consisted of the consolidation director of A-pressen, John Kvadsheim; administrative director of VG multimedia, Torry Pedersen; and earlier the administrative director of Telenor Broadcast, Stig Eide Sivertsen.

Many Superstars

During the debate Schjelderup pointed out that one of the main challenges for future media producers will be creating media products that stand out from the competition.

"I think the media of the future, to a large extent, will be characterized by "superstars", who give the product a distinctive stamp and identity," argued the professor and indicated that high profile news anchors are one method for making news programs stand out from the competition.

Local Newspaper Boost

Furthermore, the professor explained that the decrease in newspaper sales can be attributed to the fact that newspapers have not clearly differentiated themselves enough from one another.

"The second cause can be that the daily newspaper market is non-political. In addition, newspapers are meeting strong competition from the Internet," suggested Schjelderup before a full house of locals in Grieg Hall.

However, Schjelderup pointed out that the negative trend of circulation numbers is not the case when it comes to niche medias like local newspapers.

"An important reason why local newspapers are successful is because they do not compete with the Internet for coverage of local material", explained the professor.

Future Trends

After the unfocused yet exciting debate came to an end, the panel participants were asked to predict which trends would characterize the media landscape of the future.

According to Schjelderup it seems that distributors will receive less power in the future, simultaneously content will become more important.

"Additionally, it looks as if mobile telephones with touch systems will come to be more important in the future," concluded the media economist.