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David Simon: Time for NYT, WaPo to Start Charging

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Hot and Rickety, Jul 16, 2009.

  1. Hot and Rickety

    Hot and Rickety Active Member

    http://www.cjr.org/feature/build_the_wall_1.php?page=all
     
  2. Den1983

    Den1983 Active Member

    This correlates to the other thread, but it's about time newspapers stop giving away their content for free.
     
  3. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    It's also time for David to start producing something new. The Wire has been over for a while now.
     
  4. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    I can't stand the slacker, freeloader mentality that is unapologetically existing in our country right now.

    What a fucking embarrassment.

    Pay for the shit.
     
  5. cwilson3

    cwilson3 Member

    My only concern is that said freeloaders flock to CNN and Fox and all the other TV news sites.
     
  6. lantaur

    lantaur Well-Known Member

    Simon doesn't exactly paint a pretty picture for papers other than the NY Times and Wash Post. I'm guessing many newspaper folks wouldn't like the idea of the Baltimore Sun being online-only (his Scenario 2), subscription based. Or no Sun at all (Scenario 3).

    I have a friend who is pretty well thought of in the online world and he thinks the key business plan is going to revolve around mobile content.
     
  7. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Good to see Simon get an Emmy nom for Generation Kill - one of only two miniseries nominated.
     
  8. J-School Blue

    J-School Blue Member

    He's working on a show set in post-Katrina New Orleans with the actors who played Bunk and Freamon in it.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/business/media/06carr.html

    I'm stoked.

    And "Generation Kill" was a fine piece of work. The actor who played Ziggy makes a surprisingly good Marine.

    Topic? Meh. Simon likes bitching about the media but he's far from the first, or in the first dozen, to say it. I suspect everyone will sit back and see how it works for Rupert Murdoch. And I think it will work well for him. Say what you will about the man, but his business instincts when it comes to the media industry are hard to knock. He wouldn't be trying it if he thought it was a losing proposition.
     
  9. Human_Paraquat

    Human_Paraquat Well-Known Member

    Had a conversation with the publisher a couple of weeks ago about what would happen if our 40K-ish daily charged for our football and men's basketball content.

    He said page views would probably drop by about 25 percent. But here's the thing, we're only selling about 35-40 percent of our page views anyway (at least that's how he put it).

    So it wouldn't harm our current online revenue at all, and we'd add another level of revenue on top? And we're still waiting to do that why? (Not really his fault — like with any chain he has to wait for a suit five states away to come up with the idea first.)
     
  10. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    A beautiful thing would be to have a "locker room" on the sports site - jammed full of user generated content and some staff stuff (the stuff you keep in the system anyway), throw the season preview, team rosters, box scores, schedules in there - charge people $10 for a "season pass."
     
  11. Colton

    Colton Active Member


    Sounds just like a CNHI paper... ugh.
     
  12. PopeDirkBenedict

    PopeDirkBenedict Active Member

    http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2009/07/you-cant-charge-for-something-that-doesnt-provide-value.html

    He has a good point. Pick up your newspaper and see how many articles you have that NO ONE else will have. Subtract everything you get off the wire, the stories that TV will cover and have on their website, etc. and see how much you are left with. And then ask how much you would pay for that.
     
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