Fox Sports Layoffs & Changes

[cycloneworld]

Interesting article about Fox's shift towards video content and reliance on their "A-list talent".

http://awfulannouncing.com/fox/jamie-horowitz-fox-sports-digital.html

I get the shift to video if its easier to monetize but I still like reading over watching and I know many others feel the same. It seems short sided to remove almost all written articles in favor of videos.

What REALLY bugs me is this:

“The written word is still relevant, but the advertising value of written content, what we call display, is not growing. Our plan is to refresh our editorial strategy to be more in line with our video strategy. So let’s talk about this. What that means is doing less of this: ‘The 15 most unthinkable QB divorces in NFL history ranked.’ There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s just like the deer video. This is good. I might read it. But it’s not core to Fox. It has no brand identity to Fox. Anyone could publish this. So it’s always going to be hard to monetize things like this.

What really does work is when you take things are good like ’11 Coaches Oregon Might Hire’, that might be something someone is interested in the day Helfrich gets fired, and we change to ‘Colin Cowherd’s 11 Coaches.’ We’ve seen this be very successful. You look at Fox News right now, O’Reilly and his take. That’s all it is. And there are many different ways. “Colin, some of our guys and girls want to write stuff.” Sometimes you might ghost-write it for them. Sometimes you might just hear them say things on shows and that can lead you to write a story about stuff they have said. And here’s a good example of something like that. Bradshaw says something interesting about Greg Hardy on a pre-game show, and immediately writing a story about what TB said. Taking our existing content and making that into news.”

I don't care what Colin Cowherd thinks. I don't care who his 11 coaches Oregon might hire are. I want to get that news from someone involved in the industry like Bruce Feldman for example. Someone that covers the sport for a living and not some on-air TV personality who spouts things for ratings. This is a dangerous shift by Fox Sports IMO.

 

[jbindm]

I dunno. It doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather read something than watch a video or listen to a podcast, but I understand that's where digital media is shifting anymore. I can see why a site might gradually shift to a majority of video and audio content, but just lopping off written content entirely all at once seems excessive.

I wonder if this is why Reid Forgrave jumped ship to CBS Sports.

 

[SCyclone]

I admit I'm old school.....I still read three newspapers every morning. I find that digesting written content stays with me longer, and better than video.

And now I'll go off on a bit of a rant. I find the new style of video display - rapid-fire images, sometimes changing every second, particularly in movie promos - to be not only ineffective, but actually nauseating (literally). These types of images don't even allow the conscious mind to interpret them. By the time I figure out what I've seen in one image, I'm already 4 or 5 behind. I guess in today's world the transmission of the message has outstripped the importance of the message itself. (end of rant)

 

[CascadeClone]

And now I'll go off on a bit of a rant. I find the new style of video display - rapid-fire images, sometimes changing every second, particularly in movie promos - to be not only ineffective, but actually nauseating (literally). These types of images don't even allow the conscious mind to interpret them. By the time I figure out what I've seen in one image, I'm already 4 or 5 behind. I guess in today's world the transmission of the message has outstripped the importance of the message itself. (end of rant)

If your product SUCKS, the less you show of it, the better! If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em.