Consumers pay less for more

The latest KPMG sponsored YouGov research highlights the continuing challenges for the media industry as it attempts to maintain revenue streams. Consumers may well be increasing their overall media consumption, but they are paying less for it.

The research surveys consumers' media consumption and analyses trends every six months. The latest report highlights how spend has declined on newspapers and magazines in particular as an increasing number of publications move to a 'freesheet' model (including the London Evening Standard in October 2009).

Unsuprisingly, when asked about attitudes to paid-for content, consumers are happier to pay for music and films than they are for TV programmes and news, which they consider 'free' at the moment.

The most popular online activity remains social networking and blogging with 50% of respondents using these sites.

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Aslib finds a new home

The MCB Group, the holding company of the Emerald publishing group has announced that it has acquired Aslib.

Emerald states that it intends to carry out consultations with current and former members and others but that it plans to build a '21st century membership organisation'.

This seems an excellent time to alert our subscribers to an article due to appear in our June issue. Written by Oriole Newgass, the article considers the role of professional associations and membership organisations for information professionals. Oriole analyses both successes and failures and recommends some radical ways forward for high value professional associations.

Twitter vs traditional news

For those who haven't read it yet, Phil Bradley's blog features an excellent 'realtime' review of the coverage of the California earthquake yesterday, demonstrating quite clearly the timelag between what Phil now considers 'traditional' news providers (web-based news sites) and the breadth and immediacy of information he was able to access via Twitter. Twitter must now be taken seriously as a source for news.

Meanwhile, News International will press ahead with its decision to charge for online content. Content that may not be able to compete with Twitter when it comes to 'on the spot' reporting.