ROI-NJ Editor Looks into the Trends in the Media Today

Tom Bergeron, Editor and Chief Content Officer, ROI-NJ, examines trends in the media today, specifically niche market publications, and his expectations for the Murphy Administration.

5/25/19 #311

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"State of Affairs is pleased to welcome Tom Bergeron, Editor Chief Content Officer, ROI-NJ. Tom, thanks for joining us. By the way, we have a cross promotional partnership with your organization in trying to bring eyeballs, if you will, to what we do and what you do. Absolutely. How much of it is about eyeballs? Eyeballs are as important in the media for what we do. It's the right eyeballs. You know, our concern is... people always ask me what we cover, and I always answer that it's not what we cover, but who we cover for. So we're trying to produce information that is going to be relevant to the movers and shakers and decision-makers in the state. And when I say that, it doesn't necessarily mean the governor and the key leaders who read us, and we appreciate that. It's at all levels. CEOs of companies that can be 3,000 employees, that can be three employees. So it's the people who are making decisions to make the economy run. That's who we're appealing to. By way of background, Tom spent about 20 years in sports broadcasting, he moved over to business, if you will, journalism. Sports journalism if you will. I'm sorry. And we're doing the show after the University of Virginia won the national championship. You graduated from? I did University of Virginia. Yeah. Rutgers. We're doing great. [laughter] So this is ROI, by the way. This happens to be written... this story on minimum wage, by Anjalee Khemlani, who was with us recently on State of Affairs. Check out that segment. She's really good. You have a massive staff, do you not? [laughter] Yeah there's about nine of us, tee to green, everything we do, sales, journalists, editors, inside, outside, that's what we do. And you know the publication started a couple years ago? About 18 months. Right. September of 2017 was our launch. Before we got on the air, we talked about niche media, niche journalism. We're niche. Some people say, "How many people...? What are your ratings?" And in public broadcasting, yeah, it matters. But I often tell our people, it's who's watching... 100 percent. ...why they watch, and what impact we have. I don't want to say that ours is yours. But is it? To some extent. Listen, all media, all content, everything is niche publishing these days. Because people have so many choices. Whether it's TV, radio, online, social, Twitter, all that kind of stuff. So really you're appealing to a certain niche audience for what you are for. The people who are trying to appeal to everyone are the ones that are falling by the wayside. The ones that have found a niche are the ones that are exceeding far beyond what people think people are exceeding..."