The New Year brings another voice to this blog: Guy Jarvis, our Director of Corporate Development. I know he’ll bring some interesting perspectives and insights, especially from an entrepreneurial point of view.

“At the tail end of my 20-year finance career helping entrepreneurs achieve their growth objectives as financier/investor/consultant,” says Guy, “I found myself getting increasingly involved in various aspects of media - print, online, out-of-home, etc. With this hands-on foundation, I believe my role with DMS is a natural transition. After all, we’re all about consolidating & empowering the voice of Canada’s diversity mosaic. As an exciting young company, I believe we have arrived at our watershed moment!”

Below is Guy’s first contribution on the struggles of Toronto’s mainstream daily newspapers, and he’s raised some interesting issues … so, please consider submitting your comments below.

Editorial cutbacks at the major metro dailies - just sealing their fate!

By Guy Jarvis

As a Toronto resident, it seems that 2008 has been a run-on tale of woe at our four major metro dailies as advertising revenue continues to decline, and in response, staff cutbacks start in the editorial departments.

Am I the only person that considers this corporate response extremely counter productive that will only exasperate the situation in the very near term?

The usual suspects
The culprit for the cutbacks is usually a combination of the widespread economic malaise and the increasing popularity of the Internet, neither of which I fully support.

Firstly, while a lot of bloated industry sectors that should never have overextended themselves to the extent they did are feeling some pain, such as condo development and the gas-guzzling SUV dealerships, this pain is largely self- inflicted. There remain several retail segments however that are counter cyclical and will prosper during a downturn such as Wal-Mart, McDonalds and No Frills. Sales and marketing campaigns will continue, although there may be a shift in the players. Those newspapers that can suitably adapt should continue to survive and actually prosper.

Secondly, the Internet may be increasing in popularity however the online spend remains a small fraction of the overall budget for your typical national/regional/local advertiser. There are a myriad of reasons for this ‘resistance to change’ that include: unreliable audience tracking data; preference for tried and true mainstream media during volatile times; low barriers to entry for competing websites - How much ingenuity does it take to become an aggregator?!

Journalism is the key differentiator
The aggregator label is the perfect segue to the crux of this discourse. The key differentiator, a.k.a. the sustainable competitive advantage, for any newspaper is journalism.

Reporters on the street are what simply set newspapers apart.

My biggest beef with many websites is that they are a convenient aggregator of someone else’s hard work. What would possibly compel me to become a faithful visitor to this site? By cutting back editorial, newspapers will quickly become aggregators in print format. Similarly stated, what would possibly compel me to become a loyal reader?

The local relevance of Community newspapers
In addition to a major Toronto daily, I am also a loyal reader of my community newspaper. Despite the fact that my community paper simply acts as a wrapper for numerous retail flyers, most of these flyers are relevant to me because the retailers are close by, and I am always interested in a time sensitive special.

My community newspaper also carries some local stories that would never get the time of day in the major metro, but are quite relevant to local resident - public safety immediately comes to mind. I want to know if a coyote has been spotted in the wooded park across the street before I let my small pet out of my sight outdoors!

The same local relevance statement would equally apply to ‘in language’ community newspapers as there is an increasingly large portion of the GTA population that does not have English as their preferred language. It is strange to consider my WASP status as now being a minority in Toronto.

Day of reckoning is approaching
A major flexibility hurdle for the major metros are their unwillingness or inability to evolve away from their legacy infrastructure - the pain would just be too much for the shareholders to handle. Interestingly, I think that day of reckoning is rapidly approaching.

As this is the season for blatant prognostication, 2009 will likely witness the continued slide of the major metro dailies, with local and ‘in language’ newspapers eagerly and easily picking up the slack.

How important are certain columnists to your ‘loyalty factor’, particularly with the major metros? What ‘tweaking’ is required to make the community newspapers more compelling, recognizing their limited resources?

If you want to get in touch directly with Guy, he’s on LinkedIn here, or you can drop him an email here.

Imagine a musical journey around the world, with 37 musicians from five continents who have never met; yet they collaborate for one, unified musical performance, Ben E. King’s Stand By Me.

The clip above is just one element of the larger “Playing for Change: Peace through Music” project, initially beginning as a series of documentaries by Grammy Award winning Producer/Engineer and Award Winning Film Director Mark Johnson. Over the last 10 years, the initiative has grown to become The Playing For Change Foundation, “dedicated to connecting the world through music by providing resources (including but not limited to facilities, supplies, and educational programs) to musicians and their communities around the world.”

To read more about Mark’s journey in this project — in his own words — you can read his guest blog post on PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal website by clicking here. You can also visit the Playing for Change website by clicking here for more information.