OPPORTUNITIES TO PRINT MONEY
Despite what's happening elsewhere in the world I believe there are some outstanding opportunities in the print media industry in Thailand.
Take the business-to-business sector. There are very few magazines, in either English or Thai, that serve this important sector. With the right content and right distribution model there are big opportunities.
Last week Elsevier announced the launch of Oncology & Haematology News, a magazine that will include Thailand in its circulation area. For anyone in that industry it's sure to be required reading, and with readers comes advertising. Okay, that's particularly niche but why not a print magazine covering the media industry? The list is almost endless ..
6 comments:
You've filled the niche where the media is concerned, and in my view you are doing a great job. I learn things from this blog - and there aren't many blogs about which I can make that claim.
Wow, thanks for your kind words BkkDreamer.
In the UK there were three or four really good industry magazines that covered the press, media and PR industries. The closest thing out here is www.media.com.hk which is a Hong Kong-based edition of one of the UK titles I really enjoyed.
I think there are enough people working in the media (print, television, radio, online, etc) for someone to make a decent bi-weekly or even monthly magazine. And if that magazine used the controlled-free distribution method so much the better - in my opinion. It could be bilingual, or it could have English and Thai editions. It would work, I know it would.
People in the media like to know the way media outfits tick, including their own.
I read a couple of US websites which provide news about developments in the US media, but they seldom me inside a place to tell me what it's like to work there.
One day I hope to find a media outlet which does just that.
Some time, I would like to see your blog address the question of whether the news media needs to present 'unbiased' coverage any more.
If not, how one-sided can the media go? Do outlets risk losing reader support by championing particular causes, or do readers not much mind, as long as they still get a superior product?
In Thailand, The Manager newspaper is widely regarded as a mouthpiece for the PAD yellows, yet few Thais seem to mind that their news coverage is so distorted, perhaps because the Manager website also happens to be one of the best news outlets in the country.
Yet what does it mean to be a journalist for that paper?
Personally, I would like to see Thai media outlets contemplate a ban on hiring ex-Manager Group journalists.
It's not just advocacy of PAD politics: at times their writing is hateful and defamatory, a deliberate distortion of the truth.
It's not just spin, it's the kind of stuff which gets people out on the streets, wielding sticks and machetes.
Yet as I say, no one seems to mind. 'Oh, that's just the Manager!' Thais say. Yet is this the kind of media we want?
Thanks for your comments BkkDreamer.
I hope I occasionally touch on what it's like to work in the media. It's sometimes difficult because there are some things I have to keep confidential. Things like new projects, deals in the pipline, etc.
Your suggestion about "unbiased" media is an interesting one, and one I will follow-up on. I have to be careful though as my current editor is a former Manager journalists. :-)
"I think there are enough people working in the media (print, television, radio, online, etc) for someone to make a decent bi-weekly or even monthly magazine. And if that magazine used the controlled-free distribution method so much the better - in my opinion. It could be bilingual, or it could have English and Thai editions. It would work, I know it would."
I agree and a lot of other sectors. Take Oxford Business Group's recent sector by sector analysis of the Thai economy, giving essential background knowledge, or the three sectors in Pasuk and Baker's Thai Capital, you got opportunities for selling basic background info, like the Economist Intelligencer. There are probably a lot of niches waiting to be uncovered that will support a publication.
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