Thinking out loud ...

No secret. ESPN.com.

 

I don't think there would be any successful lawsuits. You're not required to give it away under government charter or anything.

 

Sorry for not knowing that, but as you can tell, I'm still pretty new on this board. But how much do you believe having the already established brand of the leading sports network behind you plays in the successful profit margin, as opposed to an individual newspaper Web site?

 

Something like Insider might not be only for the uber-fan if everyone else is doing something similar. In that case, it'd be nothing more than just like everything else that people specifically choose/buy.

And I would argue that newspapers would not be charging just for content per se. They would be charging for their brands, their versions, the news as it applies to their area, their coverage. If that's what you would call, seemingly somewhat derisively, hyper-local, or, a niche product, well, then so be it.

That is what newspapers -- in all their varying forms, locations, styles and points of view -- have always been, and done, essentially, anyway.

Just because people may start out in a place of ignorance/unwillingness to change does not mean they must, or will, always remain there.

Your Web site/section is the only one that could ever make money?

As far as pro-sports material, I would argue that many newspapers -- most of them, actually -- don't necessarily have to provide vastly differentiated versions.

Hello, AP, right? There is already not that much differentiation in that stuff. There never really has been, outside of columnists, maybe.

You are fortunate that you're at ESPN.com, I guess. I'd be glad to be there, myself, right now. But you might not always, necessarily, be the only game in town.

 

Here's a question. Do you give newspaper subscribers a password so they'll have access to the web content too? If so, does that mean if a reader signs up and pays for the web content, do they get a newspaper subscription?

I ask this because I think that's what ESPN does. When you sign up and pay to be an insider, you get a subscription to ESPN The Magazine.

I've had that idea for awhile. Have a fee to access the internet content and it would include the newspaper edition. It could help circulation numbers but it also could drive up costs (newsprint and printing). Of course, maybe you give them a choice to opt out of the newspaper copy if you want.

Hell, I don't know. I'm just throwing out ideas.

I've got mixed feelings on whether or not paying for the website content will work in any format.

 

Absolutely true that it is what newspapers have always done.
Unfortunately for newspapers now, they weren't facing threats from national information providers attached to multi-platform media entities with the power to bring essentially the same information to homes 6-12 hours ealier. And I believe that the local paper's version of college and pro sporting events matters to a shrinking pool of readers. And most importantly, Rome has been burning for at least five years, and most newspapers have been fiddling.

No, but the time to get there was about 10 years ago. A little background. When I went to another national Web site nine years ago, we were interested in joining APSE. "Why not? We're essentially an online national newspaper." We were told to pound sand. Our reaction? "Screw 'em. They'll be begging for mercy in less than 10 years."

Newspaper Web sites will make money -- eventually. I don't know how long it took for the big sites to make money, but I don't think any were breaking even as recently as 2002. It's a long hard slog and most newspapers have taken a baby step or two. And it takes money to make money at this point. Repurposing AP content online will get you killed in this environment. So while the big Web sites built an audience with a handful of writers and 95 percent AP copy, newspapers won't have that luxury. And as I said, the big sports Web sites have a staff on par with a major metro's entire operation, but not a fat major metro. In fact, I can think of two that have writing/editing staffs the size of of a 150,000 circ daily circa 2003, but with an international reach.
ESPN is a great place to work. Heck, we have everything you would want to know about Cricket. Will it always be the only game in town? Most assuredly not. But newspapers gave us and others like us one hell of a head start.

And as I've stated before on numerous threads, I read my Hartford Courant on good ole newsprint every day (Hey, Courchesne!). I'll likely always subscribe, but there is getting to be less of it to read.

 

It absolutely plays in. Newspapers have established brands too, though. And losing all those overhead costs figures heavily into profit. Pay staff, pay travel. Then pay for a full year's distribution the average newspaper probably spends in a week.

 

That's exactly the model I'm thinking of. If they pay to have the paper delivered to their home, they get a password to the website. If they pay for a password to the website, they also get the paper delivered to their home. It helps both ends.

 

If newspapers believed national/international Web sites had any answer, you'd see people from ESPN, etc., being lured to CEO jobs at Gannett, etc. With few exceptions, newspapers are local businesses that run on local advertising. You're comparing apples to meatballs.

I'd be curious to know what ESPN.com's market penetration is by locale. My guess would be that while the overall numbers are high, on a market-by-market basis their audience is dwarfed by each local newspaper's. Newspapers freaked out in the 1980s when USA Today came along and while the overall circulation now looks pretty good at 2 million or so, it isn't that big of a factor in any local market:

http://www.usatoday.com/media_kit/usatoday/ai_regional_rates_regional_market_circulation.htm

ESPN and the like have grown pretty good businesses via a broad reach, but the idea that it's made a locally produced sports section irrelevant except for preps is a bit of an overstatement.

 

Frank, good points on local vs. national advertising. Pour mor resources into securing and servicing online accounts? Not something my last shop did at all.
As for webizens being CEOs, get real. It would be like installing an anarchist as king. Hell, I'll bet a bunch of people in the industry still don't think we're "real journalists."

 

Exactly.

Once newspapers get a web-based business model down, and, either go all-web, as everyone is predicting will eventually happen, or else, find ways to treat their print papers and web sites as the separate and different but equally valuable operations that they really are, and should be, ESPN.com won't be that much different than any other web site.

The national/broad take on things is great if that's what you're looking for, and personally, I love it. In terms of actually working on stories, I prefer it, even.

But, looking at it from a general reader's standpoint -- i.e. from/for particular areas and the regional news and points of view -- newspapers (and/or their web sites) in those respective regions are still the way to go. And they always will be.

That was why, in many cases, major metros established regional offices -- and local newspapers still survived, oftentimes even though they were in direct competition with the major metros.

Even with regional offices, the big papers' areas of coverage are still a little too big, encompassing, sometimes, hundreds of schools and square miles and many regions-within-regions. Those sections' staffs simply cannot be everywhere, all the time, or address all things to the satisfaction of all people.

That is why reporters for those outlets read the other area papers: to help them keep up with things. I imagine that's a large part of why kleeda reads a lot of sports news/sources, too.

Despite their size, resources and reach, the big metros -- and ESPN, too -- often are just following up on, and/or expanding on/broadening, some news/events based on information/content gleaned from local/regional sources.

The perspective/value of news sources is different, depending on the audience you are reaching, and that you're trying to reach.

And that's true whether you're talking about readers, or advertisers.

 

I think I got us a little off track. The thread started off with the subject of whether or not to charge for content online. I'll go back to no. I don't think enough readers will see the value in it.