Crisis in media sector

The traditional media industry in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is in unprecedented danger, battered by the exponential growth and use of new, highly competitive and „disruptive‟ digital media formats as well as a worldwide economic crisis that is applying the coup de grace to what were already outdated and failing business models, according to a wide-ranging survey of senior journalists carried out by the global communications firm Burson-Marsteller.

Burson-Marsteller media experts interviewed 115 senior journalists from 27 countries throughout the region to get an inside view of how they perceived the state of their industry in their countries. In particular, the aim was to understand how the economic crisis was affecting the industry; the effects of the digital revolution; and how PR and media relations professionals can best adapt to the rapidly transforming media landscape.

Jeremy Galbraith, CEO of Burson-Marsteller EMEA, said: “From the responses of the journalists interviewed, it is clear that the essential skills and best practices of media relations have not changed despite the transformation of the industry itself. Indeed, if anything, they have become even more important than they were before.”

In the survey, a strikingly common response was that enormous numbers of journalists were being put out of work. All across EMEA, media organisations are significantly downsizing their editorial teams. Even for journalists lucky enough still to remain in full-time employment, there was little to cheer, with job uncertainty, vastly increased workloads, demands for multi-platform content, less editorial space to put that content into and (often) moves to

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