The Importance of Time

“In digital media, it is becoming increasingly clear that time is all that should matter”                 –Zack Kaplan

As a layman, it is important to understand, what really is a simple strategy to success for media companies:

1.     Create and distribute content;

2.     Capture consumer attention (i.e. time);

3.     Monetize that time

To succeed, companies need to do one of the three better. In his article, “In a digital media world, all that matters is time”, Zack Kaplan argues that being the most successful at monetizing a viewers’ time is probably the mostm important.

Newspaper companies for years found success because audiences spent their time reading their content. As television grew, the time audiences spent on newspapers shifted towards television and as a result, monetary success of newspapers dwindled, as television’s success grew. The next battle is for digital media companies to find ways to capture and hold the time audiences spend on digital versus all other platforms.

A solution – quality of content. Quality of content is what keeps a viewers’ attention. As more and more audience members demonstrate an even shorter attention span, if companies do not produce quality content, their ability to capture audience time is severely disadvantaged. This requires creative programming. But what happens when a focus on time, therefore programming, takes precedence over accurate and thorough reporting?

For news agencies specifically, I feel there is a new challenge: be very accurate in your reporting, but pay close attention to the quality of your programming. Can news agencies do both? Can they be both - strong reporters and visually captivating in their programming? I can't help but think that accuracy and thoroughness of content already suffered in the hopes capturing and retaining audience members’ time through creative programming.

Has this theme changed though? Has the introduction of "Fake News" and a perceived war on media created a new aptitude for quality and thorough content? Even if it has, to be successful monetarily, news media agencies must capture the time of their audience.

http://www.recode.net/2017/1/9/14214322/digital-media-consumer-facebook-video-monetization-content-advertising