Switch from ready-to-wear to custom-made content

By Clement Charles, CEO & Founder, AllTheContent News Agency

News agency clients have long complained of having to buy every size in every color, only to wear one item at a time. While “ready-to-wear” content has dominated for nearly three centuries, the future of news agencies now rests in a custom-made approach. Flexibility, be it commercial, logistical, or editorial, has become of the essence.

Commercial flexibility begins with economic models. While most big agencies base the entirety of their business on subscription sales, which then provide access to a vast stock of rights on a flat rate basis, clients – mainly stemming from traditional media and companies – want to be able to pay on demand and limit purchases to their exclusive needs.

Logistical flexibility has become crucial, because technological diversity must be integrated as being both on the rise and inevitable. It has become necessary in terms of technical formats (XML, RSS, amongst others), but also in terms of the frequency of deliveries, of article indexation, and of the size of content.

While new regions of the world have emerged as major economic hubs, world news agencies are shamefully unable to reflect this evolving contemporary geopolitical situation, having already missed the Chinese and Brazilian turning points, and as we speak, failing to capture the diversification towards Indonesia, Malaysia and the rest of South-East Asia.

Bringing a world vision enriched by a local awareness is a first step towards switching from ready-to-wear to custom-made content. Once they have been assimilated, valid and relevant local needs must be served.

It will be increasingly difficult to sell a 100% international service without taking into consideration local elements. Since top stories no longer belong to anyone, Reuters and AP can only generate added value by putting them into perspective and providing transversal analyses of information known to all. Going one step further, big agencies should enhance their global offer with purely local services, thereby reinforcing their ‘one-stop-shop’ position for media companies. Partnerships with local actors are mutually profitable: a local presence gives relevance to global content, while a global agency’s blessing imparts trustworthiness to local partners.

Finally, providers must be able to reflect the world’s increasing complexity by proposing high quality journalism to all target audiences, and at every level… Having imperviously differentiated serious and frivolous news for long enough, gossip news is progressively distancing itself from ethical and independence standards which remain nonetheless imperative. In doing so, agencies are overlooking a lucrative business opportunity while bolstering “non-journalistic” content within media organizations, their long-time natural clients.

To conclude, let us emphasize that the most vital flexibility is first and foremost mental: accepting change in order to understand and confront it – successfully.

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