Gannett going to paywall

If newspaper were smart, they'd find a way to insert ads from a banner ad network based on IP address. Local IPs get ads sold by the paper, while non-locals get AdSense or some other network's ads.

 

I'm assuming you're in SEC Country... In some instances, the Rivals coverage can be as good. ESPN is putting sites up in some SEC cities... The national sites all over the SEC enough that you're not going to miss too much if you can't read the local paper....

You're certainly not going to miss any news if you read Rivals and the national sites...

 

I sat watching this Gannett Town Hall and wondered how things would be different if this was 1999 sted of 2012. I say give it a shot, it can't do any worse. Might as well try to get something out of the Web site.

 

It gets worse.

Look what Burlington is doing.

Is this happening Gannett sites?

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012120222030

 

No, we're not switching formats but we've been told that a lot of things on the web will be not generally available free in the future.

 

"If newspapers were smart" is one hell of a conditional though.

 

Of course, the Facebook comments, with a few exceptions, are whining that they're not going to pay. Well, it's not like the paper was getting any money out of them anyways.

 

Are papers making enough money from online advertising that the dreaded "but we'll lose clicks!!!!!!!" even matters?

Way too late for this, as others have noted, but the industry might've been in a hugely different place right now if this'd been done 10 or 15 years ago. Now the horse is long gone from the barn, and the barn is on fire, so replacing the door isn't as effective as it might once have been.

 

The answer is no, they are not. It's not even close. And when the site is free, they are creating a direct competitor for the print product, which does actually produce advertising revenue (although not near what it used to).

 

Yes, no reason to worry about crabby readers who aren't paying for the product anyway. We're not a library, we're news outlets.

 

The number of readers that pay isn't getting any bigger.

 

I read the Free Press as often as I can, because some of our towns are in Vermont. and once in a while I will find something ethere I did not know about.

It was easier with them free. The Rutland Herald is closer, but they have a pay wall.