Cash Cows or Entrecôte: Publishing Companies and Disruptive Technologies

Abstract This article explores the effects of the disruptive technologies and changing markets on publishing companies and asserts the need for firms to establish transformation and transition strategies. It argues that the proliferation of analogue media and the development of digital media have induced significant changes in audience and advertiser behavior that challenge the long-term survival of the newspaper, magazine, and book industries. I assert that the current strategies of publishing companies to gain economies of scale and scope, to move into cross-platform content provision, and to maximize return across a portfolio of content products will be effective only for the short- and midterm. This study explores the point at which new media will seriously harm print media. I argue that consumer behavior currently prevents short-term destruction of publishing companies but that it presents serious long-term challenges to their survival. I also assert that publishing companies need to prepare strategies for company transformation. I then present an economic model to analyze the contributions of the print and digital operations that determines when maintenance of print media activities outweigh their overall contributions to the company's operations and when their survival is unwarranted.