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Thinking out loud ...

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Andy _ Kent, Jul 13, 2008.

  1. lantaur

    lantaur Well-Known Member

    To bring up two points:

    1. Paying for the service, getting a subscription. I'll use two place I formerly lived. I lived in Florida, moved to Ohio. I want to keep track of news in Florida every now and again, but why in the hell would I want to pay for a subscription? If search engines have proven anything it's that readers come from all over, not just your backyard.

    2. Your going to charge to see the paper ... and that is going to make it a sell to advertisers? How? By having less views?

    3. People need to pay for information! Because we're the elitist newspapers up here in our ivory towers and we look down on the little people and tell them what to think. Hey, amazingly enough, all my life I've received information for free. It's called commercial TV and radio ... which is paid for by ... wait for it ... advertisers.

    4. It's been said a million times over, and I'll beat that dead horse ... if the newspaper's information is so damn good then why are you only charging 50 cents? And why do cost increases only go up when the price of newsprint goes up? And how come when I put change into a newspaper machine I can grab as many copies as I want? Certainly if the information was that valuable then they'd limit me to one (you know, like happens when I want to buy a soda). Newspapers have always wanted you to read their information (and thus increase their ad revenue), and this is no different.

    5. OK, now for the answer to solve all the problems ... there isn't one. Never will be. Things sort of evolve (or devolve). That's the way life always is.

    Most people on this board are in the newspaper business or have been in the business. I'd say we value our product a lot more than people who aren't in the business. And guess what? Those are the people who newspapers (and other business, web sites, etc.) are targeting.

    Hell, I wish there was an easy solution. Even though I am in the online world and have been for a number of year, I like newspapers. I grew up reading them. Problem is, that number dwindles with age groups.

    Anyway, long answer is I agree with kleeda. And knowing who he is, that scares me tremendously. :)
     
  2. Andy _ Kent

    Andy _ Kent Member

    Well. that was a pretty depressing post -- but with some good points. I still think there might be some middle ground here, as I mentioned in my original post, and there are some examples already out there.
     
  3. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I don't understand how papers could charge for online now that so many have cut staff, beats, etc. Who are they fooling? If a paper told its readers they were pumping tons of cash into the product, hiring new people, covering every inch of town (as opposed to asking "you, our readers, to send us your community news!") and then saying they must charge, then at least readers know they're getting a real product. Just the perception can go a long way.

    Look at the Sporting News, about the only entity I read about on the board these days that's hiring (along with kleeda's outfit), and hiring a lot. I don't know what their plan is, but if it involves paying for the online product, I could justify giving it a shot because I see what they're putting into the business. Of course, I am in the business so maybe that's different. Joe Sixpack fan who gets all he needs off TV and the occasional web surf might be gone forever as far as we're concerned. He also might not, but it's worth finding out by going after him with both barrels. What passes for content in some places these days won't cut it.
     
  4. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    The readers "from all over" are of zero value to local advertisers who compose the bulk of a newspaper's revenue. That's why over the past 25 years, most major metros have cut out-of-area delivery.

    By giving them what no one else can -- the largest local audience with reliably measureable demographics.

    TV and radio have much smaller news staffs than newspapers. You can't possibly be suggesting that anyone believes they offer a competitive news product. And their Web sites carry minimal advertising compared with newspaper Web sites:

    http://www.naa.org/PressCenter/SearchPressReleases/2008/NEWSPAPER-OWNED-WEB-SITES-EARN-MORE-REVENUE.aspx


    Newspapers traditionally have kept the price down due to competitive reasons. Gannett just announced that a handful of its papers are increasing the daily cover price to 75 cents -- those are in markets in which other newspapers are not easily available.

    It's wrong to say increases in cover price are tied to newsprint prices -- that's the explanation given to customers, but not the reason. Newsprint prices fluctuate almost monthly; cover prices change about once every 15 years and the size of the increase is made according to coin combinations that are convenient for customers. While most newspapers buy newsprint on a month-to-month basis, some newspapers sign two-, three- or four-year contracts for a fixed price and thus are temporarily immune to the newsprint price increases. Yet they will raise their cover prices when nearby papers raise theirs.

    Very few people have the need for more than one copy of the newspaper. The theft rate does not justify the expense of buying more complicated vending machines. Single-vend racks are available:

    http://www.globalnewsvending.com/newspaper-vending-machine-single.html
     
  5. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    It's not a matter of whether we're fooling people, or whether we're even trying to do that, or not.

    People should pay because, otherwise, they are getting products/services rendered for nothing. Period. And, that can't/shouldn't happen, in any business.

    It is funny, and correct, however, how everything always comes back around to the idea that, whatever our delivery/dissemination method, maybe we ought to be improving our content, staff and working conditions -- growing our product -- instead of constantly tearing it up and tearing it down.

    That maybe we should try making ourselves better, instead of just different, and/or worse. That we ought to, frankly, be doing more and better at, pretty much, what we used to do before we started throwing out everything but the kitchen sink.
     
  6. joe

    joe Active Member

    I think Andy is right on with this. If papers start charging for online content, I think more people will abandon them and simply get their news from TV, whether from cable stations such as CNN, Fox or MSNBC or simply their favorite local and major-network national broadcasts.

    The only thing the papers have going for them -- except for, you know, depth and breadth and institutional knowledge and things of value -- are obits and comics.

    A hard rain's a-coming. Man the lifeboats.
     
  7. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    I'd like to think that once the newspapers are done reshaping their business model, they'll start charging for content and that once the big guys do it, the sheep will fall in line. But that doesn't account for very profitable syndication and second-use agreements that won't be as easily reworked.
     
  8. captzulu

    captzulu Member

    Here's one problem I see with comparing paying for newspaper content vs. paying for goods like a car or a soda. When I buy a soda or a car, the money I spend lead to a return of exactly the good I'm looking for -- a soda or a car. When I buy a newspaper or buy a subscription to a general news site, what percentage of the content that I'm paying for am I actually interested in? 10%? 5%? You can't make me pay for wire content since that's available elsewhere. Even on local content, how much of what's in a paper everyday qualifies as must-read or very relevant, and how much of it falls into the "oh, that's nice. Moving on" category? My experience with local papers has been that much more of their local content fall into the latter than the former.

    A niche business or sports publication can make a pay model work because of the narrow scope of their content means a higher percentage of their content will be of interest/relevance to their subscribers, thus justifying the subscription. But asking people to shell out money for a subscription to something on the off chance that they might find something in there that's relevant or interesting to them is a pretty tough sell.
     
  9. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    Water is available free from public fountains, and virtually free from the kitchen tap. So why do millions of people pay for bottled water? Some of it on the upper end is for the label's snob appeal, but mostly you are paying for the convenience of having it packaged and at the perfect temperature, right when you want it.

    One thing I learned in business school is that products and events that charge a nominal fee often outdraw similiar products/events that are free, simply because the customer percieves a value there.
     
  10. PopeDirkBenedict

    PopeDirkBenedict Active Member

    Arguing about paying for content at this point is watching the horse run away to a farm three counties away and wondering if using a better lock would keep the horse in the barn. In terms of charging for content on the internet, it's out of the barn and its not coming back.

    Except in limited circumstances (live streaming video of an event, porn, gambling advice, etc.), the paradigm has been established: internet users generally do not pay for content. When newspapers and everyone else started giving away content around the end of the 1990s, it established in users' minds that they do not have to pay for content. How many sites have successfully charged for content? Those that do are generally pretty unique. Take ESPN Insider. It has an international reach and has enough stuff behind its wall to entice people. It also has the ESPN brand name and synergy backing it up. But the content behind the Insider wall is fairly limited when compared to their website as a whole. The lessons don't transfer over to most newspapers. The NY Times charged for the one thing it had that no other newspaper has: it's opinion columnists. And it was a failed experiment. Charging directly for content has your newspaper fighting how users view the internet.

    What might work is something along the lines of the Salon hybrid model. You can either pay for complete access or users can watch a 10-15 second advertisement that they have to wait to click through. By promising advertisers that their ad will be only thing on the users screen, you can help convince them that their ad will be noticed.
     
  11. Beach_Bum

    Beach_Bum Member

    I say again, partner with the cable companies and other ISPs. Get a flat fee built into the cable bill, similar to the current tiers or premium services. The (ISPs) get a cut and access to exclusive news content to bolster their own sites. Everyone gets better advertising reach. And readers/viewers barely notice because they are already paying this bill.
     
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