XplanaZine

Henry Jenkins at MIT has a great blog article this week about which viewers really count most in the TV industry.

At the heart of the difficulties surrounding ratings are two questions: What is the best method for determinig who is watching TV, and which viewers are most important? Media scholars argue that Nielsen ratings and technologies have built in biases which overcount groups valued by advertisers and undercount groups who are not seen as demographically desirable. And, as Jenkins points out, “each time the ratings technology changes, there are abrupt adjustments in network programming to reflect where the new center of gravity is — from rural to urban, from older to younger viewers.”

This issue, about determining which viewer/users should count, is at the heart of a number of industries, and not just the ones that feature advertising. In each case, industry leaders are having to reconsider old notions and adjust their strategies for reaching important users over the next decade. In-game advertising for online gaming is booming — from $200 million to $1 billion over the next three years — and so is attention to online gaming demographics. Studies are showing that women and middle-aged men may be as important as young men between 16-22, and in-line ads will have to respond to those numbers.

Textbook publishers also face this dilema of having to decide who really matters. In the past, it has been a no-brainer. Historically, textbook publishers have made sales to district representatives, department committees, and individual professors. Students have merely inherited the decisions of these gatekeepers.

Certainly, publishers and decision makers alike tout the importance of students — afterall, the products are supposedly made for them — but the reality is that students are not a convenient or currently significant group when it comes to making textbook sales.

All of this could change, however, with he explosion of online learning. As publishers move away from traditional textbook sales to digital forms of delivering their content, direct-to-student markets will necessarily develop. In the next five years we will see publishers begin to expand the channels through which they move their content. Rather than have textbooks and quizzes that can only be sold in one format through existing sales channels and to traditional partners, publishers will make efforts to reach students directly.

They will do this, in part, because while students are a more amorphous and difficult-to-reach group, they are also a new customer group that can help companies kick-start stalling sales numbers. Traditional channels are known and comfortable, but the competition if those markets is fierce and the sales forecasts for all publihsers in those areas are tapering off.

Customers who were once invisible will likely become prominent. Students have tremendous buying power and they will grow up to be parents, administrators and professors (the other buying force). Smart publishers will start finding ways to produce lifelong relationships with students. Selling courses to them may be a first step, but they should also search for other tools and technologies that these students can use throughout their lives. Portfoilios, journals or blogs, and self-improvement opportunities merited by loyalty should figure high on the list.