The Digital Disruption of Media
In an interview with the International Journalists' Network, Auletta weighed in on the digital revolution, The Huffington Post and why he doesn’t spend as much time as he would like on social media.
The digital revolution is almost as disruptive to the traditional media business as electricity was to the candle business. For print, it eliminates paper, presses, and distribution. Since these are the majority of costs for newspapers and magazines, they should be welcomed. The problem is twofold: it is not clear that readers will subscribe online for information they think they can get for free. And since readers spend much less time reading the same publication online as they do the print version, advertisers pay about one tenth for the same ad online as they do in a newspaper. And since most publications will not be abandoning readers who insist on the print edition, costs will remain high. To date, the savings from going online are not matched by the online revenues..