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Charging for Web site?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Not too late, Feb 8, 2009.

  1. Not too late

    Not too late New Member

    Why have newspapers not started charging for their Web sites?
    I'm sure someone smarter than me has already thought of this and there have been studies to show why it won't work, but in these desperate times, it seems like a perfectly logical thing to at least try.
    I mean what is the harm with trying to package a subscription to the newspaper with a login to use the web site?
    If newspapers are trying to push people to their Web sites with more and more content, snap galleries, blogs, wanting more reader interaction, why continue to give that information for free? It doesn't make any sense and to me seems like a big reason we're in the trouble we're in.
    I find it hard to believe that people would not pay for some type of subscription that would allow them to use the newspaper's local NEW Web site AND get a paper out of it. Sure readers will always have the ESPN.coms, CNN.coms to get their national news, but for the local stuff, they have to go to the local news sites.
    If you're in a two-paper city, town, etc. and the competition still gives their's away for free, so be it, isn't it worth trying something different? It beats what's going on now with papers continuing to shed employees every few months, working those they have left to death, while taking away overtime, forcing them to take furlows, no longer matching retirement benefits and everyone has to accept it and just be thankful they have a job.
    As long as we continue to give our product away for free, how do we expect to save the industry.
     
  2. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    I'm sick of all the Tim Tebow coverage.
     
  3. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Your point could have been good if only you knew how to spell. And if you expect newspaper circulation to rise if we started charging for Web site access, then you need to rethink your plan.
     
  4. Calvin Hobbes

    Calvin Hobbes Member

    Bustling someone's chops about spelling while you don't know the difference between than and then is bad form.
     
  5. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Because charging people to view your website will not save the industry.
     
  6. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Maybe it is. But a lecture on a first post is bad form as well.

    I should have taken a furlow. Or move to marketing where I can try to get people to buy a subscription that costs more because we have added a features such as getting the paper with your login.
     
  7. gretchd

    gretchd Member

    Bustling someone's chops?

     
  8. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    The errors just keep coming on in. The Web will save us though.
     
  9. gretchd

    gretchd Member

    Don't mistake my comment as being in your defense.

    And the word is furlough.
     
  10. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    I know how to spell furlough. I just don't think uninformed opinions on why we shouldn't give our product away for free is helpful. The main point being that customers will gladly pay for online access and get the paper along with it. That's just completely foolish given that circulation has been going down for close to 30 years.
     
  11. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    You can never get enough Tim Tebow coverage.
     
  12. Calvin Hobbes

    Calvin Hobbes Member

    OK, no more bustling or busting of chops.

    Stitch is correct about dwindling circulation. It was happening long before anyone had heard of the Internet.

    There was a thread a couple weeks ago about there being more books published today than there are people who want to read them. The drop in newspapers' circulation dovetails with that thought. The average person is not as well-read today as he was 30 years ago.
     
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