Why ad blockers are a game changer
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; Dickens’ opening line of A Tale of Two Cities certainly rings true of the current media landscape.
Never before has it been so easy for people to consume news, moving between news outlets with the swipe of an index finger. New ad-blocking technology, enabled on Apple’s newly-released iOS 9, promises to make that experience even more convenient by stopping adverts from appearing in mobile browsers.
But the advent of ad blockers does not bode well for the producers and publishers of news. In the past decade, media houses around the world have seen advertising revenues tumble and circulation figures plummet. According to Pew Research Center, US newspapers alone saw ad revenue from print drop 65% between 2004 and 2014.
Mobile advertising, together with paywalls and native advertising studios, has been part of the solution, yet this promising income stream could now be blocked by the likes of Crystal, the ad-blocking programme that currently tops the chart for paid apps on App Store.
The problem is, as one commentator put it, that ads have traditionally paid for the content we consume; “an uneasy compromise between the real cost of media production and the prices consumers are willing to pay that has existed since the first human scratched the first antelope on a wall somewhere”.
Large media organisations may be able to plug the revenue gap thanks to new products and services offered by ad-tech companies. Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple News could open up new revenue streams and, some have pointed out, even larger audiences.
Smaller publishers may be less able to adapt their business models. Adapting costs money and takes time. Small outlets may have neither.
Only time can tell whether ad blockers lead to “a bloodbath of independent media”, but it’s clear they are tipping the scales in favour of large media groups. At least for now.
As Annalee Newitz from Gizmodo points out, blockers mean less revenue from display advertising, which in turn will lead publishers into the warm embrace of Facebook and Apple. But these companies aren’t out to help big outlets. “[T]hey are actively trying to supplant the place of those publishers with alternative news platforms. Like, well, Apple’s News app”, Newitz writes.
So whilst consumers will benefit from ad-free browsing and news consumption, perhaps the best of times will be had by Apple and Facebook, after all.
This blog first appeared on mhpc.com