They say a week is a long time in politics, but that is nothing compared to the changes in the Australian media landscape we now are witnessing. Fairfax and News Ltd, with hundreds of years of journalistic heritage between them and assets across print, broadcast, online and digital are confronting the huge challenges posed by the changing tide of consumer behaviour in a web-connected world.

With Telstra’s involvement in the internet dating back to the early 90’s, we’ve been at the forefront of digital content development and our customers’ hunger for it.  We’ve developed and produced a huge range of services, apps and products that thrive on the strengths of our fixed and mobile networks and delight our customers.

We have not escaped the changing public consumption of ‘traditional media’ and we compete in a marketplace dominated by some of the world’s largest brands.  Therein lies the challenge ahead for my team at Telstra Media.

On Monday I spoke with a range of journalists from Melbourne and Sydney about Telstra. I’d like to share a brief overview of the discussion regarding key areas of focus for my team.

Digital Media and IPTV/PayTV

Our digital content offerings have come a long way since they were just an adjunct to BigPond Broadband plans. We are the leading Australian-owned IPTV, music and movies download provider, with world-class offerings including recently the internationally renowned MOG music streaming service.  We are unmatched locally for sport, games and lifestyle.

The challenge now is to change our traditional telco model of ‘pull through’ and content product focus to a media model becoming truly viewer and user focussed. This requires us to develop a clear understanding of the viewer/user market segments we can win in or seek to serve as part of a content portfolio play.

The recent appointment of a Head of Digital Content is the first step in pulling our content “silos” together under a single content leadership umbrella, and the recruitment of a seasoned broadcast media industry executive to lead the IPTV business, are important steps in starting to bring media executive talent on board to drive DM&I growth in the future.

Sensis

Earlier this year the Sensis team developed a 3-year program to drive Sensis into a truly world class digital marketing services provider to Australia’s small and medium enterprises, and selected corporate and government organisations. The end game of course is a great experience for users and our customers. We have begun the process of changing the way we organise ourselves to deliver on our strategy and plan.

The core elements are:

1. Content leadership;
2. Facilitating the best connections between consumer/users and our advertisers;
3. Partnerships and innovation with the world’s leading digital products and service providers that users/consumers use; and
4. Simplify, standardise and automate.

The end game of course is a great experience for users and our customers

These are exciting times for the Telstra Media Group. Feel free to leave a question or comment below if you have one.