OVER A JOURNALISM CAREER spanning more than two decades, Dr. Daniel Franklin has seen a lot on the economic beat. But precious little tops what he and his team are covering these days.
The executive editor of The Economist magazine and editor-in-chief of Economist.com has been closely observing and commenting on the crazy, turbulent ride of the worlds financial markets this year.
Next month – when hopefully things are a little calmer and he may have a few more answers, Franklin will give a keynote speech at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters annual convention looking into the future of the global economy – and how it relates to electronic media.
Franklin is an experienced broadcaster on radio and television and has appeared on the BBC, National Public Radio, CSPAN and CNN. He often delivers speeches on global economic and political issues and his high-level briefings usually focus on the global economic environment and the outlook for the next five years.
In advance of the CAB convention, Franklin was interviewed last week by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Greg O’Brien: Looking at the year ahead that you see, what’s the message you are going to be carrying to the conference?
Dr. Daniel Franklin: (The organizers) have asked me to look at the year ahead – very much from a global perspective – to look at the context in which the industry is going to be operating. And I think it’s pretty that what happens elsewhere in the world will have a pretty dramatic impact on industries in Canada – broadcasting included. And no country is an island, no industry is an island, so I’m hoping I can perhaps be useful in setting the context on which the luminaries in the Canadian industry will be discussing.
GOB: Well, given how basically nutty the global markets are, where do you see them then in a year’s time?
DF: Well, I might have a better idea in a few weeks time when we’ll see whether things have calmed down a bit. But one thing that does seem fairly clear, at least at this stage, is what started out as something that was happening in the financial services industry is sweeping through to the rest of the economy and indeed, sweeping around the world.
So, it’s no longer something that’s confined or isolated, but something that’s begun to affect, and indeed alarm, people everywhere. I think everybody is trying to sort out what it means for themselves personally and for their businesses.
GOB: What do you think it means for the broadcasting world?
DF: Again, I might have a few more answers for you in a few weeks time, but I think one or two things that probably will be coming clear is first of all, it’s clearly going to affect advertising budgets – and that has a big impact on broadcasting.
Secondly, one suspects if anything, it will speed up some of the trends that were already apparent before, such as shifts in advertising to digital media. There are bound to be, in certain circumstances, an enormous focus on value for money, improved rate of return, and these are things that will probably accelerate trends that are already, quite strongly visible.
Then I think there are other events that we’ll be looking forward to beyond the current crisis that will shape the business environment such as elections of various sorts. Of course the U.S. election, but worth remembering is that there are many others happening in the next couple of months, right across the European Union… national elections in Germany, which is the biggest economy in Europe… there are elections in the most populous democracy of the world, which is India… elections in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world… as well as in key places such as Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. So, you can see a lot is going to be happening at the ballot box.
GOB: What do you think of the media’s coverage, especially the broadcasters’ coverage, of what’s going on economically right now?
DF: Well, it’s been all hands on deck, first of all. I think (media) people have been struggling like policymakers and financiers to comprehend what’s going on. I think that there’s been a bit of an element of soap opera – there always is with these big stories – where you wait for the next kick of excitement at the next episode.
On the whole – and I can’t speak for Canadian broadcasting because I don’t see it – the major outlets have been doing a pretty good job of trying to keep up with the story. What’s particularly difficult is to try and keep ahead of it because it’s been moving so fast.
I think what you’ve been seeing is a desperate effort to try and cover the latest twist. But just as that’s been covered and you’ve got your mind around that, something else enormous has happened and it’s done. And I think the challenge is to see and understand the next major shift as it takes place.
GOB: You’ve been in the media a long time and this is a truly global story, the breath and depth of which we haven’t seen in a long time. How has new media changed the way traditional media companies cover such a story?
DF: Clearly people are getting their information from any number of sources these days. I think people often turn online for their first take on the news and we certainly see this at Economist.com in our traffic. I’m sure all news or news analysis sites’ traffic has been very, very sharply up – often at times of the day and times of the week when it isn’t normally. Clearly people are flocking online. And I think that puts more pressure on the problems, for example, daily newspapers have because they’re more than likely to be behind the story.
But it’s probably not a bad thing in the same way for broadcast media because they can bring you the latest twist straight away. It’s the daily newspapers that perhaps have the toughest time in this environment.
GOB: Oh, they’re definitely having a tough time.
DF: I suppose it’s another example of perhaps accelerating the (advertising) trends that I was talking about.
GOB: When do you think we’re going to emerge from what’s going on in the markets right now?
DF: Well… we’re not yet through it clearly… and there’s still second and third order impacts in the banking system to work their way through and we’re seeing it now working through to corporate debt and spreading to parts of the world that it hadn’t reached before. So, I think this is going to take quite a while and the only question is whether it’s much longer of this sort of dramatic swings in panics that we’ve seen in recent days… or whether it’s just a more gradual taking stock of the drama that we’ve seen. I think we haven’t yet seen the policymakers, government, central banks, get in front of the issue fully.
They’re still catching up as I speak.
We’ve seen some very big steps taken, but not all of the steps taken by all of the participants that need to happen, so we really get that calmness to settle back in. We’ve got a little while to run yet.
GOB: Broadcasters – well, cable companies first and to a lesser extent broadcasters – are thought to be well-able to weather a recession because people tend to go out less, maybe watch more TV, turn on their primetime shows instead. Do, you think that’ll hold true this time or is this different now because more people are fleeing to take in their news or get their entertainment from other places like wireless and on line as compared to past downturns?
DF: Well, I think the appetite for raw news will subside a little bit with the panic. But I do think that with a recession, people will look for home entertainment more. But of course their choices now are enormous.
It’s quite a competitive market, whether it’s DVDs or video games or streaming media. So, I think it is a shifting landscape and although on the face of it there could be an opportunity here, there’s going to be a lot of competition for people’s attention at their screen.
GOB: Who do you think is best prepared to take advantage of that, if there is opportunity there?
DF: Gosh, the industry that you know particularly, they’re the experts here. But I guess the simple short answer is the ones that are most attuned to, or able to respond quickly to evolving consumer tastes.
