Newspapers are a business, not a library

LOL does he write for The Tampa Bay Times?

(The Times does that kind feature-y crime stories all the time, and it is often written like this. I know other reporter's do this at other places, but TBT was the first that comes to mind.)

 

And every area is "a close-knit neighborhood."

Every neighborhood might think that. Many of them are not. Especially these days.

 

The reason people don't want to pay for a newspaper is quality to be honest. To go Fredrick, the suits were slow to charge for the newspaper. When the newspaper was free it was much larger and had a lot of local news. Twice as thick. And it was free. So people just assume that when the product was thriving and the product was a quality one and it was free, it doesn't make much sense to charge (Gannett anyway charges a ton) for an inferior product that is 8-10 pages. If they were paying even a little when things were going good, then it might not have been as dramatic of a change even to slightly increase in price. But some of these papers charging 20 bucks per month for trash is ridiculous and how would they expect someone to buy it?

 

I got the KC Star's sports-only subscription and a full subscription to the Post-Dispatch. The former is $30 a year, and the latter is $9.99 a month.

After years and years of reading for free, I finally figured it was worth it to pay for the coverage I like to read, worth it to support the institution. We also have a subscription the the NY Times.

 

Studthug12 gets it! Funny thing about Boomers (they only folks willing to pay for this current crap) ... they are so addicted to newspapers they don't even complain much about the ridiculous pieces of crap they are getting on their doorsteps today.

 

That's what I find so amazing, Frederick.

I know dozens of people who just can't seem to cut ties with the paper because that's all they've ever known, even when they are now getting their news online too. I don't get it. There's no way I'd pay $275 a year for what you get from most rags these days. It's weird, but newspapers have this psychological effect on the age 50 and up generation. They just can't seem to let go.

That tells me newspapers have about 10-20 years left. Once the kids from the '80s are gone, there will not be enough interest to keep any newspaper alive.

 

The print product may go away in 10-20 years, but there will still be a need for news organizations.

 

Indeed, but they will need to compete with the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Google. If there is not some kind of regulation in the digital ad market, news organizations will keep fighting this uphill battle.

 

Off topic but I wonder if this will happen with cable tv in the next generation. I personally cant imagine not having cable even though I know cord cutting might be cheaper and get me the same stuff

 

I didn't say news organizations. I said newspapers would be dead. Big difference!

 

I know cable is taking a beating the last decade or so. If they don't figure out how to get their product to customers at much lower cost, you could see that market in big trouble too.

 

I guess it depends on how you're looking at it. The NY Times is a newspaper, but is it solely a print product with nothing to offer digitally? Are you saying there will be no NY Times in 10-20 years, or just no NY Times print product?