The media business has been in chaos for a decade, and there's more coming. The next big media revolution will be an escalating and increasingly bitter competition between the content creators--especially newspaper and magazine publishers--and their former friends, the traditional ad agencies, which still create and buy most print ads for their clients.
The traditional ad agencies are going to lose because creating great, engaging content is emerging as the key skill in marketing. And they don't have it.
Well, well, well. Looks like grand old guard of media's past, Hearst Corporation, has given up the ghost and accepted the new world order. It can be ignored no longer: marketers and brands are fast encroaching on publishing territory as they morph into full-fledged content providers ('Every Company = Media Company'). So, what are cash-strapped media-making giants like Hearst (and others, such as Meredith) to do? Warning: pigs will fly.
