CNA WINNIPEG / DAY 2

Coverage of Leonard Asper's (CEO of CanWest Global Communications Corp.) Thursday noon hour address to CNA delagates as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press Business section.

Papers down, not out:
Asper Says print media can compete with evolving online competitors

By Martin Cash

According to Leonard Asper's hockey analogy, the newspaper industry may be down by a couple of goals after the first two periods, but it can still win the game against its online competitors.

Speaking to about 450 members of the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA) in Winnipeg on Thursday, the CEO of CanWest Global Communications Corp., which owns the largest group of newspapers in the country, said that newspapers' advantage over the online world, which has a bunch of all-stars" is that it owns valuable content.

It just has to figure out the right way to disseminate that content online in addition to the traditional printed form. Asper said he believes there is plenty of resolve and ability to ensure a strong future for the newspaper industry.

"We can win by defending our zone, our local markets, and by playing the game in their end zone," he said. "If we do that, I think we stand a good chance of at least scoring the next goal."

Asper was referring to the fragmentation of newspapers' core audience and advertisers by online information and entertainment sources. He said it's crucial that the Canadian newspaper industry, with $3.5 billion in annual revenues, use its brand integrity and establish the right kind of online platforms to deliver its content in a way the changing audience wants it.

"There is so much more the web is going to offer." he said in an interview. "YouTube didn't really exist a year-and-a-half ago. No one in the newspaper business can predict what the media will look like in three or five years from now. We need to build a platform to accommodate new users' desires."

He said if newspapers can build the kind of web presence that attracts people, then when the next new way to use content is invented, they'll have a web presence in place to exploit that.

"They will already be going to our shopping mall, not someone else's shopping mall," he said. Anne Kothawala, president of the CNA, said online strategies are at the top of the agenda for newspapers across the country. "Clearly the biggest issue for the industry is how to monetize online content," she said.

Rob Curley, the head of product development for Washingtonpost. Newsweek Interactive, perhaps the leading figure in online developments for newspapers, stressed that since newspapers have a legacy as the leading provider of news and information in their respective communities, they need to figure out ways to carve out that same niche on the web.

"In every local market in the world, newspapers are synonymous with the news," he said. "If we screw it up (the newspapers' presence online) it's our own fault." Curley is now bringing the award-winning, online work he accomplished at small papers in Lawrence, Kan. and Naples, Fla. to the Washington Post organization. He said newspapers ought to provide the day's stories on their websites, but they need to do much more.

Among other things, they also need to morph into multimedia organizations, he said, where the day's news, and richer, more detailed content, is delivered so that it's accessible to all online devices. That includes wireless ones like iPods and cellphones.