Time to take a long, hard look

Spencer Howson (pictured here today in holiday mode) and I revisted the subject of "sports-mad Australians" on his 612ABC radio program this morning and I made the point, I hope, that it should be seen in the broader context of changes in the media landscape. Media organisations, especially newspapers and free-to-air television, know that they are losing audiences and are desperate to reverse the trend by whatever means possible. But it seems to me that not everything is on the table. The basic newspaper today looks much as it did 50 years ago -- news up the front, features in the middle and sport in the back. And every radio or TV news bulletin allocates a certain time to sport regardless of whether there is any real sporting news at all. Because sports fans make the most noise, and a lot of them sit in the boardrooms of media organisations, nobody is willing to take a cold, hard look at the facts and say, "Well, not everyone is interested in sport and maybe we plough too much of our time and resources into it for a disproportionate return." To the accountants, I say: count the number of ads in the sport section, count the number of journos working on producing it and the amount spent on sending them to sporting evetns in far-flung places. To the editors, I say: look at the statistics about what percentage of the population is actually interested in sport. After that, take a look at the arts and entertainment section and the revenue it creates and the amount of interest in the area. Or the travel section, for that matter. Until media owners are prepared to put aside their prejudices and the "common wisdom", they will be missing valuable opportunities to make money and keep their product afloat in difficult times. And they will be disenfranchising more and more of their potential audience.
PS: This argument extends to web offerings too. Go to your favourite news website and note how the sports section is always up to date, but the arts section has less content and it often goes unchanged for days.