Newscorp Web sites to start charging users

Username, I've been of that line of thinking for a long, long time.

We're not making money through advertising supposedly derived from those coveted "hits."

So what's the difference if we're not making money because people won't subscribed?

As I've said before: Zero from zero equals zero.

Pay, or don't read about your city council hiking up taxes. It's up to you. Because letting you know FOR FREE that council just raised the rates by 15 per cent isn't making us any money.

 

But it can't just stop at one. It has to be an all or nothing for newspapers. One paper or a handful of papers charging for info won't cut it.

 

Somebody has to be first. Murdoch's got the money to take the initial hit, which isn't much of a hit at all for his papers.

 

That attitude IS death. The reason everything is given away is because there's so much information out there that its effective price is driven low, because there's so much. Let's put it this way -- if the New York Times couldn't attract people to pay for their Pulitzer Prize-winning columnists, what makes you think they're going to pay to see the East Bumfuck tennis scores? And don't talk about micropayments. What you get from there isn't worth the cost of the servers.

The newspaper industry HAS been ad-subsidized for years. Yes, people pay a subscription, but it's so tiny compared to the actual cost of the paper. So people already were conditioned not to pay much for it before they paid nothing. And the long-term potential of Web advertising far outstrips any payment you'll receive from readers. Your readers are more valuable as eyeballs, even at the low, low rate of Internet advertising. If you put everything behind a pay wall, you will cease to exist in the public's mind, and in the advertiser's mind as well.

 

I don't think enough distinction is drawn between what the NYTimes does and what your average 25-35k daily does. Yes, there's a buttload of information floating around out there on the stimulus package (for example) at large. We're not going to be able to put that behind a wall. But who else is producing copy on how the stimulus package affects road construction on the highway that runs between your two largest markets? Or social programs in your school district?

That's exactly what we CAN make people pay for, because it's the only product we have to sell them.

The kinds of websites that can be sustained on web advertising are the kinds that can afford to "win" the general topics. No one is reading my rag for that stuff, it's essentially there as filler (as well as "paper of record" obligations).

But when it comes to that local information: the prep football gamers, the school board meetings, the bond initiatives, in many cases we have little to no competition. And yet we still give our only product away for free. We're dying now because of it, and if the best solution we can come up with is "wait it out, the web will get there" we're done for.

 

Because, more than one paper/columnist is writing about the big "national" or "political" story. Because, more than one paper/columnist is opining about Obama and the Great Recession.

Because, no one other than me was at the preps game last night. The local 25K paper offers something NO ONE else does.

 

Wasn't there speculation right after the WSJ purchase that Murdoch was going to make its online content free? Seems like a major turnaround.

 

Has anyone read the comments from the readers of that article? Amazing stuff.

 

Bob makes a good point here. There is no question the Internet is killing us, but it's not so much because people are getting the info for free. It's because the ads aren't bringing in money. Newspapers have never really been supported by subscriptions/single-copy sales. Sure, as advertising has fallen off and the prices have gone up that has changed slightly. But newspapers/magazines/TV news have always been primarily funded by advertising, right? THAT is what needs fixing, and I think charging for online content is only going to drive readers to other sources. Now IF every paper started charging, that would be different I suppose. But what are the chances of that happening?

 

Very interesting. People sure feel entitled to their Internet news. ... Until all the newspapers go down in flames for lack of funds. Then they'll realize the news isn't produced for free.

 

Or if you have an iPhone and download the free WSJ application.

 

I wonder, does that include the Ottaway papers News Corp still owns? Or just his big-city British and Australian papers? Because if places like the Cape Cod Times and New Bedford and Middletown can pull this off, that would be something.
Hard to see it working for the NY Post, though, unless the Daily News did the same thing.