Birnbach Communications Issues Top Media Trends for 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 9, 2009 -- Birnbach Communications, Inc., an independent communications agency with special expertise in traditional, online and social media, today issued its top media trends for 2009. Birnbach, which takes an analyst’s approach to monitoring the media, based the list of trends on conversations with reporters, bloggers and Twitter members to find out what they’re following.

For nearly a decade, Birnbach Communications, which works with clients across a range of industries – including the financial software and services, security, technology, healthcare and life sciences, consumer, social networking, nonprofit and education sectors – has compiled an annual list of media trends to help its clients more effectively work with the media, both at traditional or online outlets, including blogs and social networking sites.

The following are Birnbach Communications’ media trends for 2009:
• We will need a new definition of “newspaper” as many publications shift to an online-only format, dropping the “paper” part of their business. Birnbach suggests calling them “newssites” (based on the soon-to-be outdated newsstand). Calling them “dailies” isn’t appropriate either, given a 24/7 news cycle.

• Dozens of secondary newspapers and magazines will shift to an online-only model in 2009. Already this year, FinancialWeek announced that it is shifting to online-only this month. The benefits of the online-only model include substantial savings since they no longer have to print, mail and deliver content to newsstands and homes. The downside: They lose three revenue streams – display and classified advertising from the print edition as well as subscription fees – and now rely on online advertising to fund their operations. Online subscription fees have worked for only select media – even the New York Times couldn’t make a fee-based plan work.
• Traditional media that continue to publish print editions will update their formats to include more maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats, along with shorter articles. These print editions will also be shorter, with some papers – including the Denver Post and Boston Globe – having shed stand-alone business sections. The same holds true for magazines.

• These stand-alone smaller business sections are not likely to achieve their publishers' goal. They are more difficult for readers to find, and provide less coverage of business at a time when the economy is undergoing seismic shocks a time when people need to more closely understand what's happening and how it impacts them. These smaller sections will also be less interesting to advertisers, too, because readers may easily skip over them.
For the complete list of media trends, click on http://twurl.nl/vdl6s2.