Ad market 'reset': Ballmer

Painting a bleak picture for the future of traditional media, Ballmer said broadcast and print publishers would have to plan business models around a smaller share of advertising dollars, while revenues would continue to move to digital channels.

“I don’t think we are in a recession, I think we have reset,” he said. “A recession implies recovery [to pre-recession levels] and for planning purposes I don’t think we will. We have reset and won’t rebound and re-grow.”

Ballmer predicted that within 10 years all traditional content will be digital, but said print publishers had failed to generate new revenues from the digital opportunity. The traditional strategy of simply replicating print content online was doomed to fail, he argued.

“All content consumed will be digital, we can [only] debate if that may be in one, two, five or 10 years. There won’t be [only traditional] newspapers, magazines and TV programmes. There won’t be [only] personal, social communications offline and separate. In 10 years it will all be online. Static content won’t cut it in the future,” he said.

For media businesses to evolve they must provide the right combination of context and relevance to make a compelling online proposition for both readers and advertisers, Ballmer noted.