Exploring the Survival and Development of Traditional Media in the New Era

(Lanling County Converged Media Center, Linyi, Shandong 277700)

Abstract: This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the survival status of traditional media in the new era and identifies sustainable development pathways. By examining the types and evolution of traditional media, the paper investigates challenges in content production, distribution channels, audience engagement, and business models. While traditional media face significant issues including audience loss, declining advertising revenue, and technological lag, they can leverage inherent strengths in content quality, credibility, and brand influence to achieve survival and growth through deep integration with new media, content innovation, and enhanced user experiences. The conclusion emphasizes that by continuing to fulfill vital roles in public opinion guidance and cultural inheritance, traditional media can rejuvenate themselves and contribute to the sustainable development of the media industry.

Keywords: new era; traditional media; county-level converged media; deep integration; brand influence

CLC Number: G202
Document Code: A
Article ID: 1671-0134(2025)05-56-05
DOI: 10.19483/j.cnki.11-4653/n.2025.05.011

Citation Format: Zhang Xiaohui. Exploring the Survival and Development of Traditional Media in the New Era [J]. China Media Technology, 2025, 32(5): 56-59, 72.

Amid the wave of information technology innovation, new media has rapidly captured the information dissemination market with its instantaneous, interactive, and fragmented communication characteristics, profoundly reshaping the media ecosystem. Declining newspaper circulation, falling television ratings, and sluggish growth in radio listenership demonstrate that traditional media's survival space is facing unprecedented compression. However, as a primary platform for public opinion and an important carrier of cultural inheritance, traditional media's core values remain irreplaceable. How to achieve breakthrough and rebirth in this new era of coexisting challenges and opportunities has become a critical issue in the media field [1].

1.1 Definition and Classification of Traditional Media

Traditional media refers to media forms that existed long before the emergence of new media and have played important roles in information dissemination. The main categories include newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Newspapers primarily use text and images, distributed through printing, covering politics, economy, culture, entertainment, and society with news reports, commentary, and special features. They have regular publication cycles (daily, weekly) and possess strong capabilities for in-depth reporting and regional targeting. Magazines generally target specific audiences with more specialized and in-depth content, featuring sophisticated layout and design, though their relatively long publication cycles result in a narrower but more loyal readership. Radio uses sound as its medium, transmitting via radio waves or wire to deliver audio information, characterized by wide coverage and convenient reception (requiring only simple equipment like radios), with strong immediacy particularly suitable for mobile listening scenarios. Its reach is extensive, unrestricted by geography or education level, making it especially suitable for remote areas or elderly populations. Television integrates images, sound, and text to deliver vivid and intuitive content. For example, CCTV's News Broadcast serves as a national authoritative news program bearing the important mission of policy release and public opinion guidance, while cultural programs like Chinese Poetry Conference present traditional culture in popular forms through audio-visual language innovation, strengthening cultural communication effectiveness.

1.2 Advantages and Values of Traditional Media

1.2.1 Professionalism in Content Production

Traditional media possesses professional editorial teams whose journalists and editors have mostly undergone systematic training, equipped with keen news sense and solid writing and editing capabilities. They have extensive experience in discovering news leads, verifying information authenticity, and conducting in-depth reporting. For instance, when facing complex political, economic, or social issues, professional journalists can conduct comprehensive, multi-angle analyses on-site, while editors carefully polish content to ensure rigorous logic and standardized language, presenting high-quality content to audiences. This professionalism ensures the authority of traditional media content and constitutes an important value.

1.2.2 Depth and Breadth of Content Quality

Traditional media emphasizes depth and breadth in content creation. Unlike fragmented information on new media platforms, traditional media has sufficient space and time for detailed reporting. Magazines particularly excel in this regard—specialized publications like Science and Nature invite experts to write long-form analytical articles on scientific achievements or academic topics, elaborating on research background, processes, significance, and future prospects, enabling readers to gain deep understanding of cutting-edge developments. Similarly, newspaper special reports and television in-depth interview programs can dissect events or topics, uncovering underlying causes and impacts to provide comprehensive perspectives that satisfy audience demand for substantive content.

1.2.3 Credibility Advantage

Traditional media has long adhered to the "three reviews and three proofreads" system, ensuring information authenticity, accuracy, and objectivity through rigorous processes from initial material screening by journalists to content review by editors and final approval by management. This has established a perception of "authority, rigor, and reliability" among audiences.

1.2.4 Brand Influence Advantage

Many traditional media organizations have developed powerful brands through years of development, occupying unique positions in audience consciousness. Readers magazine, since its founding in 1981, has maintained a core positioning of humanistic care, consistently ranking among the top domestic journals in circulation. Its brand has spawned book publishing and cultural activities, creating strong industrial chain value. Hunan Satellite Television has shaped a youthful, entertainment-oriented brand image through signature programs. Brand influence not only attracts audiences but also secures advantages in the advertising market, as advertisers prefer to place ads with well-known, reputable traditional media brands whose audiences demonstrate high loyalty and consumption capacity, delivering better marketing results.

1.2.5 Value in Cultural Inheritance and Social Cohesion

Traditional media plays a vital role in cultural inheritance. Literary works, historical stories, and folk culture in newspapers and magazines; classical music and traditional opera on radio; and cultural programs on television all carry rich cultural connotations that pass national and regional cultures from generation to generation. For instance, China Media Group's China in Classics brings stories from Shangshu and Tiangong Kaiwu to the screen through dramatic interpretation, revitalizing traditional culture. The Spring Festival Gala, as a cultural feast shared by global Chinese, unites national sentiment through television broadcasting, serving as an important carrier for cultural inheritance and social cohesion enhancement.

2. Challenges Facing Traditional Media in the New Era

2.1 Impact of New Media

Speed and Immediacy: New media, relying on the internet, enables extremely rapid information dissemination with near-instantaneous publishing and distribution. Users on social platforms like Weibo and WeChat can release information immediately when events occur, whereas traditional media must undergo processes of interviewing, editing, and review, making it difficult to keep pace with event development and placing it at a clear disadvantage in timeliness [2].

Global Reach: Leveraging the global connectivity of the internet, new media's dissemination scope covers virtually all networked areas worldwide. For example, the TikTok short-video platform has users across the globe, while traditional media's reach is often constrained by geography and distribution channels. A local newspaper's distribution is mainly limited to its local or surrounding areas, making it difficult to achieve global influence.

Interactivity and User Participation: New media provides rich interactive channels. Platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou support "watch-and-comment" and "one-click forwarding" functions, where users are both information receivers and creators. During the 2024 "National Anti-Fraud" short-video campaign, users actively created educational videos, forming a nationwide participation wave. Traditional media mostly adopts one-way communication with limited audience feedback channels and insufficient interactivity.

2.2 Audience Loss and Changing Consumption Habits

Audience Loss: With new media popularization, an increasing number of people access information through mobile terminals, leading to a clear decline in traditional media audiences. Newspaper circulation has continued to fall in recent years, while television ratings and radio listenership have dropped, accelerating the audience shift to new media.

Changing Habits: New-era audiences prefer fragmented, personalized, and instantaneous information acquisition. They habitually browse brief, concise content on mobile devices during fragmented time periods. Traditional media's content presentation is often relatively fixed—such as long-form newspaper reports or fixed television programming—making it difficult to adapt to these new consumption patterns.

2.3 Severe Talent Drain

Traditional media faces serious talent loss, with numerous experienced journalists and editors leaving for emerging online video platforms where they can obtain higher salaries and broader development space. New employees at traditional media may require lengthy cultivation to reach maturity. Meanwhile, technical and management talents have also left to varying degrees, individuals who play crucial roles in advertising marketing and strategic planning at traditional media. Their departure may cause traditional media to struggle more in market expansion and business model innovation when facing new media impacts, making it difficult to formulate reasonable development strategies to address market changes and competitive pressure [3].

2.4 Declining Advertising Revenue

Advertiser Preference Shift: New media's advantages in precise targeting and big data analysis enable more accurate ad placement before target audiences, winning advertiser favor. Advertisers increasingly allocate budgets to online platforms and social media. CTR data shows that China's online advertising market is expected to reach 12 trillion yuan in 2024, while traditional media's advertising market share is gradually being diverted.

Difficulties in Effectiveness Evaluation: Traditional media advertising effectiveness relies on sampling surveys and ratings statistics, which suffer from poor data timeliness and inability to track user behavior. Unlike new media, which can measure effectiveness through real-time data like click-through rates, conversion rates, and user retention, this limitation reduces advertiser confidence in traditional media, further accelerating advertising revenue decline.

2.5 Pressure of Technological Updates

Emerging Technologies: New-era technology evolves rapidly, with artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), blockchain, and other technologies widely applied in new media. AI writing tools can generate news briefs in 10 seconds, while VR live streaming enables immersive sports experiences. These technologies provide strong momentum for new media innovation. If traditional media fails to adopt new technologies timely, it risks content form monotony and weakened dissemination effectiveness.

Technology Application Lag: Traditional media often lag in technology application due to funding and talent constraints, as well as institutional and systemic factors. For instance, some traditional media organizations are still in the initial stages of applying big data analysis and AI-assisted editing, unable to fully utilize these technologies to enhance dissemination effectiveness. New media companies, relying on cloud computing and open-source technology, can complete product iterations within months.

3.1 Persistent Brand Advantages

Credibility and Authority: Traditional media's long-established brand image and credibility grant it high authority and trustworthiness among audiences, helping it stand out in competition and attract user attention and reliance. Well-known newspapers and television stations enjoy strong reputations, and their information is often considered reliable and authoritative.

Brand Influence: In an era of information explosion, traditional media can provide more credible and in-depth news reporting and specialized analysis through professional editorial teams and strict review processes. Even under new media impact, audiences continue supporting traditional media to some extent based on brand trust and preference, providing a foundation for development. Southern Weekly strengthens intellectual group identity through brand activities like "Annual Tribute" and "New Year Address," while its brand-derived offline forums and book publishing business achieve diversified value monetization [4].

3.2 Strong Professional Content Production Capacity

In-Depth Reporting and Professional Interpretation: Traditional media possesses professional editorial teams with rich experience and high professional competence in news interviewing, writing, editing, and production. They can conduct in-depth reporting and professional interpretation of major events and social hotspots, uncovering truths and providing valuable content. This capacity represents a key distinguishing feature from new media. The Beijing News in-depth reporting team spent six months interviewing parties and investigating departments in the "Buried Body on Campus" case, reconstructing the full story through exclusive interviews and evidence compilation, with the report exceeding 500 million views across the internet, demonstrating traditional media's in-depth reporting advantage [5].

Content Quality Control: Traditional media maintains strict quality control mechanisms throughout the production process, from topic selection and planning to interview research, editing review, and final publication, with corresponding standards and procedures for each link to ensure accuracy, objectivity, and high quality. CCTV's Touching China program undergoes seven rounds of review from candidate selection to story reporting, ensuring each character story is authentic and moving, establishing a benchmark program for promoting positive values [6].

3.3 Great Potential for Resource Integration

Human Resources: Traditional media has accumulated extensive human resources through long-term development, including good relationships with government departments, business circles, and cultural figures. These connections provide conveniences such as exclusive news sources and cooperative projects [7].

Information Resources: As information collectors, organizers, and disseminators, traditional media possess massive information resources accumulated over years. These resources can be further integrated and mined to support new businesses like data journalism [8].

Technical Resources: Despite lagging in new technology application, traditional media have accumulated certain technical resources. For example, Linyi Converged Media Center combines original host studio appearances with AI synthesis technology to launch intelligent AI anchors, reducing labor costs while improving content production efficiency [9].

3.4 Policy Support and Guidance

Media Convergence Policy: In September 2020, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating the In-Depth Development of Media Convergence, requiring all localities and departments to conscientiously implement it based on actual conditions.

Cultural Industry Policy: The government attaches great importance to cultural industry development and has introduced many related policies. As an important component of the cultural industry, traditional media can also benefit from these policies, such as receiving corresponding support when conducting cultural activities and publishing books.

4. Survival and Development Strategies for Traditional Media in the New Era

4.1.1 Content Convergence

Traditional media can integrate high-quality content resources with new media platforms. For example, People's Daily launched the "People's Account" platform to aggregate quality content for fragmented distribution, while CCTV's short-video program Anchor's Take transforms serious news into lively short videos, achieving cross-circle content dissemination [10].

4.1.2 Channel Convergence

Traditional media must expand distribution channels beyond original publishing and broadcasting channels. They can cooperate with new media platforms, disseminating content through social media and live streaming. For instance, radio stations can cooperate with online audio platforms like Himalaya to broadcast programs online and expand listenership. Hunan Broadcasting constructs a "Mango Ecosystem" matrix, synchronizing television programs across Mango TV, Douyin, and Weibo for cross-screen dissemination, while Shanghai United Media Group's The Paper expands user coverage by entering platforms like Toutiao and WeChat [11].

4.1.3 Technology Convergence

Traditional media should actively adopt new media technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing to enhance competitiveness. For example, CCTV employed XR virtual technology in the 2024 Spring Festival Gala to enable interaction between performers and virtual scenes, while Xinhua News Agency developed "AI Synthetic Anchors" to improve dissemination efficiency. Traditional media can also use big data analysis to understand user preferences and achieve precise content推送.

4.2.1 Optimizing Service Quality

Traditional media must focus on audience service, ensuring timely and accurate delivery to newspaper and magazine subscribers and improving signal quality and program broadcasting stability for radio and television audiences. Meanwhile, establishing user feedback mechanisms to timely understand user opinions and suggestions enables service improvements [12].

4.2.2 Enhancing Interactivity

Interactivity with users should be enhanced through new media platforms. For example, Dragon TV's Go Fighting initiated topic discussions and voting interactions on Weibo during broadcast, while radio stations launched real-time interactive segments like "Listener Song Requests" and "Hotline Connections" to attract fan attention and discussion, thereby improving user stickiness.

4.3.1 Expanding Diversified Operations

Traditional media cannot rely solely on advertising revenue but must expand diversified operations. They can develop cultural industry-related businesses, such as publishing groups engaging in film and television production or cultural product development, and television stations organizing offline concerts or theme park operations. Shandong Radio and Television Station has built the "Qilu Cultural Industry Park," integrating film and television shooting, education and training, and tourism experiences [13].

4.3.2 Strengthening Cooperation and Alliances

Traditional media organizations can enhance cooperation to jointly address challenges. Lanling County Converged Media Center joined the Jiangsu-Shandong-Henan-Anhui-Hebei County-level Radio and Television Alliance for joint coverage of major regional events. Traditional media can also cooperate with new media enterprises, such as Henan Satellite TV cooperating with Kuaishou to launch the Tang Palace Night Banquet series, achieving mutual traffic sharing between traditional culture and short-video platforms [14].

4.4.1 Cultivating Professional Talent

Traditional media should strengthen professional talent cultivation through internal training and external training programs to improve skills in news interviewing, writing, editing, and production.

4.4.2 Introducing Cross-Disciplinary Talent

Traditional media also needs to introduce cross-disciplinary talent, such as AI engineers and short-video operation experts, to bring new concepts and technologies that promote development.

4.4.3 Establishing Talent Incentive Mechanisms

Establishing innovation reward funds to heavily reward outstanding content creators and technology innovators, and implementing project-based management allows employees to grow through practical experience and stimulates innovation vitality.

5. Case Studies of Traditional Media Development in Different Fields

5.1 Print Media: Digital Transformation of The New York Times

The New York Times has built a "subscription + advertising" dual-driven model, protecting quality content through a paywall strategy while using AI technology to optimize news recommendation algorithms and launch personalized news briefings. Its data visualization team produced the US Election Real-Time Map, presenting election data through dynamic charts.

5.2 Radio Media: New Media Expansion of BBC

BBC created the "BBC Sounds" audio platform, integrating radio programs and podcast resources for personalized recommendations, and cooperated with streaming platforms like Spotify for content distribution. Its VR radio drama Interstellar attracted young listeners through immersive sound design and won international broadcasting awards.

5.3 Television Media: Converged Development of Hunan Satellite TV

Hunan Satellite TV constructed the "Mango Ecosystem," forming a diversified business matrix spanning television, online video, e-commerce, and cultural tourism. The program Sisters Who Make Waves adopted a "watch-and-buy" model, enabling viewers to purchase celebrity products while watching, while the offline "Mango Town" cultural tourism project achieved cross-border extension of media brand value.

In the context of the new era, traditional media transformation and development face both severe challenges and tremendous opportunities. By fully recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses, and actively adopting strategies including content innovation, technology convergence, business model transformation, and talent cultivation and introduction, traditional media can achieve survival and development in the new media wave, continuing to play important roles in information dissemination and cultural inheritance. Traditional media must continuously strengthen core content competitiveness, fulfill public opinion guidance and cultural inheritance functions, reshape industry status in the digital wave, and contribute to building an all-media communication system and promoting cultural prosperity [15].

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(Responsible Editor: Li Yansong)

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Author Bio: Zhang Xiaohui (1983—), male, Han ethnicity, from Linyi, Shandong, works at Lanling County Converged Media Center, senior editor, bachelor's degree, research direction: news gathering and editing.
(Responsible Editor: Li Yansong)