The state of newspapers today

Again, this isn't the solution. the solution is to make ad money off the net. If you do that, it doesn't matter that it's free. In fact, charging for content will probably be counterproductive, because it will drive your hit count drastically down, making a medium already struggling to attract ad dollars even more toxic to advertisers.

Now, how do we make ad money off the net? That's for the next generation of ad wizards to discover.

 

Yeah, but keep those percentages in perspective. Fifty-five percent of what and 1.4 percent of what? Print revenue is still what keeps us in business.

Porn and other shit I buy from Amazon.

Realistically, we must not underestimate the general public's attitude of "I want it cheap" or "I want it free." It's why we constantly have "subscription specials" all the fucking time when the paper doesn't cost that much to begin with. It's why WalMarts keep popping up. It's why we pirate music and movies online.

I really don't have an answer for any of this.

 

Thinking a little more about this. I have a subscription to one newspaper for $20 a year. I have an offer from the LA Times for Sunday newspaper for $20 a year.

That's not giving the paper away, but it's pretty close.

 

It really is.
If on 10 Sundays your redeem you Fruity Peebles coupon, it's even less than pretty-much-giving it away.

 

So could an established pay daily go to free distribution without a major hiccup in revenue? Say a 200,000-circulation starts distributing to all 600,000 homes in its metro area. Does the loss of 185,000 subs and 15,000 single-copy sales and the additional delivery cost get negated by the heightened attractiveness to potential advertisers that tripling your potential readership provides?

 

It depends on how many of those 600,000 actually pick up the paper. The paper will still have to do readership surveys to show advertisers someone is reading the paper. If have a lot of people who just throw your paper right in the garbage, your scores crater, and your advertising is toast. Under that model, you may as well say you're going all-online, because at least you cut out the cost of paper.

 

i don't know if all y'all know this, but i love fruity pebbles.

 

No way in hell. Because, in the immediacy, you're taking a major hit.
600,000 subscribers. Let's just say 500,000 home delivered for the round number. The number that I've seen associated with home delivery is 12-15 cents daily. 65-70 cents on Sundays. We'll take 13.5 cents and 67.5 cents. Just for argument. That's $67,500 daily, six days a week: $405,000.
We all know there are more Sunday subscribers than the rest of the week. But, we won't count for that. We'll keep it at 500k to account for discounts and other deals during the week. $337,500.
Home delivery rake = $742,500 weekly. $2.97 million monthly. $8.91 million quarterly.

Of course, the numbers are hypothetical. And vary region to region. Paper to paper. Chain to chain. But, you get the point. There won't be a free paper of quality hitting your doorstep anytime soon.

 

It doesn't seem that long ago when our biggest worry was the cost of newsprint. And yet it seems so, so very long ago, doesn't it?

 

In the 1920s it was the radio.
In the 1940s it was the television.
In the 1980s it was cable television.
Sure the pie is being sliced. But, what we do -- newsgathering -- is a commodity. It always will be. Telling the story of our NFL team. Of our NBA team. Of our college teams. Of our high schools teams. Of the blind marathoner. Of our neighbors. Tell those stories. Tell them beyond the 15 seconds of television. Or three paragraphs of regurgitated blog installments. Tell them so the next time you tell a story, another person picks up the paper.
Make you a destination. Make your paper a destination. Make your website the destination of life in realtime.

Anyone who knows my posts, knows I'm a realist. But, I love this profession. It is who I am. It is all I have done. If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging. It is time to swing back. If your employer doesn't appreciate it. Find one that does. It is time to swing back.

 

fish, I'll guarantee you my paper is a destination for a number of things -- particularly in sports. But people are going to the destination for free from all over the country.

Like you, this is all I've done and all I ever wanted to do for as long as I can remember. But we're going down the tubes for a very simple reason: we're giving it away for free on the Internet and not giving them any reason to pay for out product.

 

Well... Like I stated earlier in the thread: I've done this dance. I'm not so sure I want in again.
First off, I have very little interest where you work, or for whom you work. I work at a decent rag, too. Mostly, I cherish my anonymity on this board so I can discuss topics like these and not be solicited constantly for career/job/resume advice.
Newspapers are not losing this battle because of free content. Newspapers are losing because of decades-long revenue streams are gone. Classifieds, considered free money, are lost to CraigsList and EBay. Automobile ads have gone to EBay, AutoTrader, AutoNation and Carmax. Help wanted to Monster, CraigsList and to CareerBuilder. Metros have lost their movie industry ads to television/internet synergy advertising campaigns.
Mix in the consolidation of department store chains to Federated Inc. Throw in "The Wal-Mart Effect" and you have the perfect storm for struggle.
It really has nothing to do with subscription. Nothing at all. Charging -- by and large -- for content has been a failure on the internet. And doing so would cripple and already hobbling industry. What newspapers lost was our advertising slice. That's what hurt. Our monopolistic hold on delivery into homes. An undivided audience. It's gone.
Now, it's time to evolve.
Let's stop pissing into the Goddamn wind.