newsletterMedia Management and Transformation Centre • February 2009

Media Management and Transformation Centre • Februari 2009-1-

Broadcast media in small nations face unique challenges in their abilities to serve their nations, participants told the center’s Broadcasting in Small Nations workshop that was held in Copenhagen during January.

“Because national size affects the ability of a nation’s market to

finance and produce domestic program-ming, the ability of small nations to provide a broad range of programs and choices among producers and chan-nels is constrained,” MMTC Director Robert G. Picard, told those attending. “Consequently, small nations are much more dependent upon, and influenced by, imported programming and non-do-mestic channels than larger nations.” “Small nations have distinctive pro-perties and characteristic dynamics,” Gregory F. Lowe of University of Tampere said, and “must cope with the influences of big markets in today’s internationalized media system.” The concept of small market requi-res a consideration of the economic

Small Nations Face Special Broadcasting Challenges, Speakers tell MMTC Workshop on Size and Broadcasting

culture of the state in question, John Jackson of Concordia University told the workshop. “Economic practices feed back into cultural systems, creating a discursive synthesis, at once cultural, social and economic.” “Not only can small nation broadcas-ters be argued to operate under different conditions than their larger counter-parts, but the interaction between public and private media can also be argued to be dissimilar,” said Christian Edelvold Berg of Copenhagen Business School. “In small nations public service media can be perceived necessary to increase the choices of available programming as well as influencing the radio and TV markets by acting as counterbalance against market concentration.” “We need to pay much more attention to how market size is a variable that affects the content, form and genre de-velopments of media products,” Hanne Karina Brunn of University of Aarhus said. “The qualitative consequences to the products are of pivotal political

and cultural importance, because these products communicate values and are part of the everyday life of the media users.” Competing supranational, nation, and regional interests affect small nations’ policy, Prof. Tom Moring of University of Helsinki told the group. Policies of EU interact with domestic policies and policies of regions in which nations share cultures he said. “One needs to assess broadcasting structures not top-down but bottom-up. It starts from cultural needs of regional and minority audiences.” MMTC is sponsoring a 1 ½-year re-search project on the challenges of bro-adcasting in small nations. The project his headed by Christian Nissen, former Director General of the Danish Broad-casting Corp. and now a professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Gre-gory Lowe, formerly a strategic adviser at the Finnish Broadcasting Corp. and now professor of media management at University of Tampere, Finland.

Small state theory provides ways of understanding many of the unique challenges and issues facing media companies in smaller countries, Christian Nissen of Copenhagen Business School told participants at the January workshop.

Production challenges require a great deal of creativity and make domestic broadcasting programs more important in smaller countries, Greg Lowe of the University of Tampere told the workshop.

Media Management and Transformation Centre • February 2009-2-

The French newspaper industry faces deeply rooted challenges that will not be easily addressed, MMTC Director Robert G. Picard told a press commission established by President Nicolas Sarkozy to study the economic and business condition of the press.

Picard was invited to Elysée Palais to consult with the study group in late fall. He discussed issues of the current crises in newspapers, news consumption, and paid content business models with the Etats Généraux de la Presse Ecrite pa-nel. The group was been charged with producing propositions and solutions to reform the sector and adapt its busi-ness model to the transforming media environment. “Concern over the press has been magnified in France because the prima-ry segment faring poorly is the Parisian quality press that has made high invest-ment in journalism and commentary,” Picard says. “It is this industry segment that plays the most important role in leading discussion about the nature of society, the importance of social and political developments, and developing ideas about how to address contempo-rary challenges through public policy.” Although the regional press is relati-

MMTC scholars are modifying bu-siness teaching curriculum through simulations and games designed to prepare business students to be suc-cessful leaders of media firms in the 21st century.

In the age of digitization and globali-zation, the business environment keeps evolving making businesses, particularly media f irms, extremely diff icult to manage. This new environment has prompted MMTC researchers to seek innovative means to prepare students face the new challenges. “Media businesses are inherently dif-ficult to run,” says MMTC Research Manager Patrik Wikström. “Dual markets, volatile consumer demand, perishable products, and a constant change of technologies make the ma-nagement of media firms more complex and demanding than the management of many other businesses.”

Deeply Rooted Challenges Will be Difficult to Address, Picard Tells French Press Commission Seeking Newspaper Solutions

vely stable, the national press is heavily threatened, he says. “The national press shows all the characteristics of a decli-ning and vanishing industry. It is having significant difficulties finding customers and advertising and circulation incomes have plummeted signif icantly since 2000.” The French quality papers have poorer relationships with consumers because of fewer direct contacts than in other nations, according to Picard. This occurs because of high dependency on single copy sales. About 70 percent of the sales of Parisian papers are through single copy sales. “This single copy sales challenge is compounded by a large free rider problem. Although about 21 million readers use French papers daily, only 8 million papers are purchased,” Picard says. “That means nearly 3 people are reading each paper that another person purchases. If one is concerned with

financial sustainability, this is an enor-mous problem because it denies revenue to the papers.” The commission is headed by Bruno Patino, president of France Culture and former President of Le Monde Interactif, under guidance from Nicolas Princen, communications advisor to President Sarkozy.

MMTC Director, Professor Robert G. Picard.

MMTC Resorts to Games to Help Students Become Effective Decision Makers

Wikström is leading a team of MMTC researchers to supplement bu-siness textbooks with computer-based simulations to enhance students’ com-prehension of the complex dynamics of the real world of media organizations. “We are working on these simulation games and are currently focusing on a consumer magazine firm issuing dif-ferent titles,” he says. “The player runs a magazine within a certain market with specific characteristics regarding consumer preferences of price, content, print quality, branding, etc.” The first such simulation is expec-ted to be available for the students in autumn 2009. Wikström says most of the game is ready, but that it needs to be made “more user-friendly before the launch.” In the current volatile business envi-ronment, students need comprehensive treatment of systemic thinking, he says.

“The time has come for educators to prepare students for the real world pro-blems,” he adds. Wikström, however, realizes that like computer-based war games, the MMTC business simulations may not always exactly represent conditions in the real world. “But we hope our work will eventually provide students with an understanding of how the different parts of a media organization work together,” he says. “Our underlying premise is that media management education should go bey-ond what the textbooks provide. We are keen to develop systemic thinking skills to provide a better understanding of organizational complexity.” The consumer magazine game, for instance, simulates a market where students meet a number of competing magazines vying for profit maximiza-tion and dominance. “In a bid to counter competitors’ jolts, the player has to make decisions on pri-cing, brand investments, sales pressure, staffing, content quality, among other vital business issues,” says Wikström.

Media Management and Transformation Centre • February 2009-3-

The center has received a grant of 2.5 million SEK (€230,000) for a 3-year study of the Swedish television program production industry from the KK Stif-telsen, a Swedish research foundation. The project is a collaborative effort that includes the Swedish television producers’ industry association and two of its biggest company members, Strix Television and Meter Film & Television. Those partners will invest an additional 2.5 million SEK in the project. The project is being directed by MMTC Prof. Rolf A. Lundin, who will lead a research team including Lucia Naldi, Maria Norbäck, Pernilla Rendahl and Patrik Wikström.

Differentiation, positioning and bran-ding are possible through linguistic representation, particularly in media firms, MMTC researcher Leon Barkho found in his dissertation that was suc-cessfully defended in January. Barkho’s study, Strategies of Power in Multilingual Global Broadcasters: How the BBC, CNN and Aljazeera Shape their Middle East News Discourse, explored the newsroom strategies of the three broad-casters in covering the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and the war in Iraq. His research relying on ethnographic observation – interviews, internal style guidelines, anecdotes, secondary data, etc. – to reveal how the broadcasters’ production strategies and guidelines play a pivotal role in influencing, infor-ming and shaping discourse and how

Zehra Sayed has begun doctoral studies in business administration at MMTC and plans to focus her stu-dies on foreign direct investment in media firms. She will study jointly in MMTC and the Department of Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Management. A native of Mumbai, India, she received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Mumbai, a master’s degree in media studies and a second master’s degree in journalism from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. Sayed’s master’s thesis was on ownership trends in the Indian press. Sayed was previously employed as a correspondent at Sun Publications in India, and has held positions with Daily Tej and BBC Worldwide.

Sayed Joins MMTC as Doctoral Student

Center Receives Grant for Study of Independent Television Production in Sweden

Barkho Successfully Defends Dissertation on Global Broadcasters Content Strategies

“The private TV production indu-stry is quite new in Sweden and it is working hard to find its role and define its business model,” says Lundin. Con-sequently, the project “is focused on how entrepreneurship and creativity relate to business models and dynamic capabilities.” “TV production companies have to balance efficiency in making TV programs with innovativeness when it comes to new formats, etc.,” he says, however eff icient operations reduce slack resources that are typically used to be innovative. The project has domestic importance because of television’s role in promoting Swedish culture, but also because of its economic effects, says Lundin. “There is a need for Swedish industry to remain in Sweden,” and the development of popular formats make it possible to sell those formats elsewhere, generating income that returns to Sweden. The KK Stiftelsen (The Knowledge Foundation) supports joint research linking academic institutions, busines-ses, and the public sector to stimulate innovation and creativity that improves competitiveness by developing know-ledge and competence development.

Dr. Patrik Wikström has been named research manager of MMTC. He has been a research fellow at the center since 2007. Wikström’s research interests involve innovative and adaptive behavior of me-dia firms, music business models, new media and society, intellectual property, and privacy issues. He received his Ph.D. from Karlstad University, completing a dissertation on the music industry response to digital threats and opportunities. He holds a master’s degree in technology and eco-nomics from Chalmers University. He previously held positions in broadband/cable and Internet firms. He is the author of The Music Industry - Music in the Cloud and his research has been published in the Journal of Media Business Studies, Popular Music & Society, and International Journal on Media Management. Wikström is a member of the Aca-demy of Management and the European Media Management and Education Association.

Wikström Named Research Manager of MMTC

MMTC Researcher, Doctor Leon Barkho

helping differentiate and position each network’s social world and discursive practices.

Media Management and Transformation CentreJönköping International Business SchoolP.O. Box 1026SE-551 11 JönköpingSweden

Telephone +46 36 10 10 00E-mail mmtc@jibs.seInternet www.mmtcentre.se

Europe’s premier centre on media business issues

STAFF ACTIVITIES

ELENA RAVIOLA presented “The organization of the publishing companies and the challenges of new technologies” to newspaper publishers and editors at a seminar in Rome organized by the Institute of Media Economics of Fondazione Rosselli in late fall.

ROBERT G. PICARD presented “Developing High Tech Media in Low Tech, Low Income Countries,” at a seminar organized by Print Media South Africa in Johannesburg in late fall.

LEON BARKHO was interviewed by Sveriges Radio and the BBC about international news coverage of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in January.

MARY ALICE SHAVER took part in the advertising task force meeting of the World Newspaper Association in New York in December.

CINZIA DAL ZOTTO had a book, Management and Innovation in the Media Industry, edited with Hans van Kranenburg, published by Edward Elgar in January.

LUCY KÜNG has become president of the European Media Management Association.

ROBERT G. PICARD was interviewed by National Public Radio in the United States in January about the state of the newspaper industry and suggestions that subsidies and other state support might be used to assist their economic crisis.

ALDO VAN WEEZEL traveled to Chile, Colombia, and Mexico in the fall to research case studies of how the newspapers El Mercurio, Mural, and El Tiempo are launching new print, broadcast, and Internet products. MART OTS was a visiting scholar at the Quello Center at Michigan State University in October and November and he received a Hedelius stipend from the Handelsbanken foundation to support his dis-sertation research.

LEONA ACHTENHAGEN has been named to the editorial review board of the journal Entrepre-neurship: Theory and Practice.

LEON BARKHO had an article, “The discursive and social power of news discourse,” published in Studies in Language and Capitalism.

LUCIA NALDI won the U.S. Government’s Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy Award for the best paper exploring the importance of small to the economy or a public policy issue for a paper “Family Firms Venturing Into International Markets: A Resource Dependence Perspective.” The prize will be handed out during the 2009 Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference.

ROBERT G. PICARD has been selected as a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University for 2009.

ELEN

A R

AV

IOLA

CIN

ZIA

DA

L Z

OT

TO

MA

RY A

LIC

E SH

AV

ERA

LDO

VA

N W

EEZ

ELM

AR

T O

TS