News On-Demand: The Future of News Advertising in Apps

News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch has hailed the iPad a “game changer” for media companies that have been struggling with declining newspaper circulations and trying to find ways to make their online content pay. News Corp’s flagship local newspaper, The Australian, set up an app for the iPad when the tablet was launched here in May.

News says sales of the $4.99-a-month app have exceeded expectations with incremental sales of one million dollars worth of advertising at launch. Pay-walls aside, the future of eBooks and eNewspapers and eMagazines will very quickly attract advertising support. Device manufacturers and ePublishers will I predict, make more money from digital advertising than they ever did before in their paper incarnations.

The Book Industry Study Group released a report on January 15 detailing statistics about US eBook readers. Among findings, the group reports that about 20 percent of readers in the US stopped purchasing physical books in the last 12 months, instead switching over to electronic editions. Amazon announced that for the first time in its history, more electronic books were sold on its website over Christmas than traditional paper books.

The release of Apple’s iPad tablet computer will usher in entirely new formats for interactive advertising in news on-demand media and with it a whole new genre of news reporting. The New York Times and the WSJ apps for the iPad are exciting developments for the future of news.

Although the book industry has always been the more pure paid content business model, advertising has often played a part. The prospect for eReadership is to think about how content is displayed and make the advertising naturally fit, rather than slapped on in a way that is annoying.

Like the graphic novel, eBooks, eNewspapers and eMagazines herald an enormous opportunity for in-app advertising, images and video. As with in-game advertising, it follows the trend that in second decade of the 21^st Century, digital content marketing is about to reign supreme.

James Grant Hay is a digital entertainment consultant and founder and CEO of InShot, an agency which advises broadcasters and publishers on the future of news on-demand advertising in editorial content.  His recent clients include Belo Corporation, owner of the Dallas Morning News.