The ongoing slide into the black hole

To counter this line of thinking, if you put your content behind a pay wall, aren't you making yourself, especially if you're a paper in a smaller market, even more vulnerable to any potential competition that would give away its content for free?

Let's say that existing newspaper all agree to put up pay walls. Some readers would be willing to pay, but there will be enough who don't to create an opportunity for some entrepreneurial spirit to start a company that only covers the local news in a particular town and does it only online, without a pay wall. Yes, the company's size would be limited, being a startup and relying solely on online ad dollars. However, a couple of factors would help level the playing field a bit: With the way most papers have been trimming staff, your typical Podunk Daily probably only has a handful of reporters covering the local news anyway. Secondly, an online-only company focusing solely on local news will have significantly lower overhead (no printing press, no newsprint cost, no production staff, no paginators, no AP fees, fewer copy editors, fewer layers of management). Those two factors could help the start-up company get by on online revenue while still holding its own in terms of the number of reporters compared to the Podunk Daily.

Once such a company gets a foothold, as long as it produces solid journalism, chances are it will gain in popularity and readership, even if its scale doesn't yet match that of the Podunk Daily. Someone who pays for Podunk Daily content would likely read this web site as well since it's free, but someone reading this web site would not necessarily pay to read the Podunk Daily, especially if they feel like they're getting the important local news from the free web site (which would be likely since the Web site, with fewer resources to start off, would probably focus its efforts on the biggest news).

The Podunk Daily would still have the advantage of its established name, and the century or decades of practicing journalism behind that brand. However, it's restricting people's access to that brand. If I have two brands of the same product and one becomes more expensive, don't you think I would at least be interested in trying out the other brand just to see if it meets my needs, especially if it costs me nothing to try? And if I find that I like the other brand better, or even just close enough, do you think I would ever go back to the more expensive brand?

A startup news company also has an advantage in that even though it may not be able to cover as much as the Podunk Daily, it is not burdened by century-old expectations of what and how much it should be covering. If Podunk Daily doesn't cover a local prep tournament, it might get crap from readers b/c "You've always covered it in the past." If Podunk Daily cuts the baseball boxes, there'll be hell to pay. The new web site doesn't even have to run agate. They are not offering the readers less than they did before, because for them, there is no "before". To readers, anything they get from this site would be gravy. They would start off reading the site as perhaps a supplement to what they get from the Podunk Daily, but as the site's revenue and scope increases, it would gradually displace the Podunk Daily as the primary source for a reader.

In any case, the point is that such a web site, if done properly, would likely retain and gradually increase its readership. That would increase its online revenue, likely at the expense of the Podunk Daily's web site, which has limited its own readership and advertising potential by putting up a pay wall. So as the new web site's revenue increases, it is able to expand the scope of its coverage, while the Podunk Daily loses some online revenue, and the money it makes from online subscriptions likely won't be enough to offset the loss of online ad dollars and the continued decline in print readership and advertising. It's not hard to see which one would be in better shape going forward.

On top of that, consider how much negative PR it would bring newspapers if all of them agreed to simultaneously put up a pay wall and restrict access to the news. Good luck convincing readers then that you are actually in this to serve the public and not for the money, that your coverage isn't agenda-driven, that you're not trying to sensationalize your content just to make more money. Some might even call such a no-free-content agreement collusion (not saying that it is, but just that it could be perceived that way).

Considering that print subscriptions (which are a lot more expensive than the proposed web subscription) comprise only about 20 percent of most newspapers' revenue, charging $5 a month for online subscription would be like a drop in the bucket. Given the bad image newspapers already have with the public, is that worth turning off readers, limiting your online readership (and hence your potential for online ad revenue), and opening a door for competition to move into the in-depth local news realm, where the Podunk Daily still more or less has a monopoly at the moment? Heck, in that situation, a startup company can immediately position itself as the good guys and the Podunk Daily as the villain. Think about the ad campaign it could run ("Information should be available to all, not just those who can pay." ... "We are in it for the journalism; the Podunk Daily is in it for the money." ... "Tear down this pay wall!")

 

I believe you're right, for the most part. Still, I can't help but feel a little ashamed when people ask me why my newspaper expects them to pay money for the print edition when they get it all - and more - online.

 

I think papers could make plenty of money leaving their content free to be read, while charging people to post their opinions on the site.

People are addicted to spewing their opinion (hi, mirror!) and I would guess the elasticity associated with charging them to post would be small.

As a wonderful by-product, credit-card payment would immediately remove most of the virulent hate language that peppers papers reader-response areas.

 

I hope I'm not being blue-font dependent here, and maybe it's just me. But I strongly disagree with that idea. I know I, at least, would be much more inclined, likely and willing to pay for content than I would for the ability to comment.

People generally expect -- again, everywhere outside of newspapers giving their content away for free -- to pay for a product.

Not so much, I don't think, when it comes to the ability to voice (or write) their opinions. Probably has something to do with the U.S. Constitution, the First Amendment and the right of freedom of expression.

It just wouldn't fly. (I hope). And I hope it wouldn't be tried.