Giving away the product for free online

[Johnny Dangerously]

We've had these threads before, but something occurred to me this morning while reading about the music industry taking on file-sharing sites. As an industry, would we be equally fiercely protective of our product, our creative enterprise, if we made it available only by subscription but discovered people outside the company had found a way to offer it to people for free? As it is, we're the ones doing that, and we seem to be OK with that. Or are we?

 

[lantaur]

And we're off ....

The music industry's main source of revenue is sales. Newspaper's is advertising, not sales/subscriptions.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Yes, I've read all the threads and had the discussions, and yet ... I thought I'd post this. Feel free to ignore. I didn't get much sleep last night. My judgment is clouded. I will be a bad poster today.

 

[SoSueMe]

And network TV's main (read: only) source of revenue is ads, also.

But you don't see NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS posting their news shows, sit coms, etc. for free on their websites. And they sue or force youtube to remove posts of said shows.

Who would watch TV if you could just log onto the net and watch it all for free, commercial free? (I supposed one could argue TiVo is sort of like that, but anyway...)

But we as newspapers keep giving everything away, allow bloggers to steal from us and anyone else link to us.

 

[SF_Express]

But you don't see NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS posting their news shows, sit coms, etc. for free on their websites. And they sue or force youtube to remove posts of said shows.

SSM, you're right about YouTube for now.

But in fact, CBS announced a huge deal Thursday in which it WILL be giving away a great deal of content for free on various websites, advertiser supported only.

http://blogs.business2.com/business2blog/2007/04/cbs_embraces_we.html

 

[lantaur]

And NBC has a number of its shows available online for free:
http://www.nbc.com/Video/

ABC appears to do the same:
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing

And this so-called "stealing" and "linking to us" ... well, it provides traffic to the site when people click on that link, you know.

 

[SF_Express]

allow bloggers to steal from us and anyone else link to us.

Yeah, lantaur, I missed that one.

This is a good thing, SueMe, not a bad thing.

 

[Shaggy]

And network TV's main (read: only) source of revenue is ads, also.

But you don't see NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS posting their news shows, sit coms, etc. for free on their websites. And they sue or force youtube to remove posts of said shows.

Who would watch TV if you could just log onto the net and watch it all for free, commercial free? (I supposed one could argue TiVo is sort of like that, but anyway...)

But we as newspapers keep giving everything away, allow bloggers to steal from us and anyone else link to us.

That's wrong. ABC posts all of their shows online. So does MTV. All of them with fewer commercials or no commercials at all.

I think ESPN.com is doing it the right way. Have some stuff free, have some paid, and gradually move all of their content toward the pay side.

 

[SoSueMe]

And NBC has a number of its shows available online for free:
http://www.nbc.com/Video/

ABC appears to do the same:
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing

And this so-called "stealing" and "linking to us" ... well, it provides traffic to the site when people click on that link, you know.

Fair enough. But I notice the shows are like Miss America Pagent, the struggling Apprentice, the ratings-are-down 30 Rock, Andy Barker PI (which I've never heard of) and the cancelled Black Donnellys. Most of the "lest popular" shows. You still have to watch TV for, example, the Office and ER - staples of NBC.

What they're doing is the equivalent of a mid-sized daily posting the AP/CP/Wire stories for free and making you buy the paper for the local bread-and-butter content.

I don't watch enough TV to be an expert

 

[RokSki]

No, I don't think we would.

It's just a different mindset, to me. I mean, I can share the paper with everyone in my office, but I don't necessarily let everyone in the office make copies of my CD.

That's just my first take.

 

[somewriter]

I had not seen this discussed elsewhere, but it sounds like a whole lot more papers are trying to give their product away as well. Not included of course is Tribune and Sam Zell already has said papers needed to stop giving away their valuable product.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yahoo13apr13,1,4723120.story?coll=la-headlines-business

 

[MacDaddy]

And we're off ....

The music industry's main source of revenue is sales. Newspaper's is advertising, not sales/subscriptions.

Circulation is not our main source of revenue, but it is roughly 20-25 percent of it. If a good profit margin is 20-25 percent, what kind of profit do you have if you eliminate the circulation revenue? Ummm, roughly none!

Revenue and profit aren't the same thing. Circulation is 20-25 percent of revenue, but is more than 20-25 percent of costs. So eliminating circulation costs would increase profit margins, assuming other revenue remains the same.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

And we're off ....

The music industry's main source of revenue is sales. Newspaper's is advertising, not sales/subscriptions.

Circulation is not our main source of revenue, but it is roughly 20-25 percent of it. If a good profit margin is 20-25 percent, what kind of profit do you have if you eliminate the circulation revenue? Ummm, roughly none!

Revenue and profit aren't the same thing. Circulation is 20-25 percent of revenue, but is more than 20-25 percent of costs. So eliminating circulation costs would increase profit margins, assuming other revenue remains the same.

The vast bulk of the advertising revenue comes from the paper product, and until that changes, you have to print it. No getting around that. You can't assume "other revenue remains the same" -- it won't. None of us would be printing newspapers if that assumption were even remotely valid.

 

[fishwrapper]

I agree. Except it is a different product.
The printed web is smaller, the newshole is smaller, the staffs are smaller. It's not your older brother's newspaper.

 

[lantaur]

I had not seen this discussed elsewhere, but it sounds like a whole lot more papers are trying to give their product away as well. Not included of course is Tribune and Sam Zell already has said papers needed to stop giving away their valuable product.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yahoo13apr13,1,4723120.story?coll=la-headlines-business

Sam Zell has no clue. He says Google steals product ... um, I didn't know Google had its own stories. They link to stories, Sam, so people who might not otherwise have seen them will see 'em.

 

[Adrian Wojnarowski]

And we're off ....

The music industry's main source of revenue is sales. Newspaper's is advertising, not sales/subscriptions.

Circulation is not our main source of revenue, but it is roughly 20-25 percent of it. If a good profit margin is 20-25 percent, what kind of profit do you have if you eliminate the circulation revenue? Ummm, roughly none!

Now there are newspapers that give it away, but they spend very little on news coverage. Unlike us.

Early on, I could see giving it away online as way of building the brand, but I believe we are past that now.

We are being foolish. AP is a news cooperative owned by the nation's daily newspapers. We ought to stop selling that product to non-newspaper Web sites such as Yahoo and ESPN.com and see how long these parasites can survive without content from us. We need to be much more protective of the content we pay to gather -- all of it. We are basically subsidizing online competitors.

Come on, Frankie.....Parasites? And to think, everyone at Yahoo and ESPN.com speaks so highly of you.

 

[MacDaddy]

And we're off ....

The music industry's main source of revenue is sales. Newspaper's is advertising, not sales/subscriptions.

Circulation is not our main source of revenue, but it is roughly 20-25 percent of it. If a good profit margin is 20-25 percent, what kind of profit do you have if you eliminate the circulation revenue? Ummm, roughly none!

Revenue and profit aren't the same thing. Circulation is 20-25 percent of revenue, but is more than 20-25 percent of costs. So eliminating circulation costs would increase profit margins, assuming other revenue remains the same.

The vast bulk of the advertising revenue comes from the paper product, and until that changes, you have to print it. No getting around that. You can't assume "other revenue remains the same" -- it won't. None of us would be printing newspapers if that assumption were even remotely valid.

I realize that, and agree with you on that. I was just trying to point out the fallacy of the circulation revenue argument.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

For reasons we need not go into, I've been reading a lot of media and advertising trade publications lately. One common thead emerges. ALL formats, from TV to radio to cable to magazines, are at best not losing audience numbers-most sure are. Ad revenue follows the downward path. ALL media are flailing about trying to figure out how to make money off the Internet. NONE have succeeded. NOBODY has a clue. Please don't cite what TV, etc. are doing online as an example for newspapers. The networks are pulling guesses out of their asses just like the rest of us.

 

[SoSueMe]

Maybe if everyone started putting out great products again, the internet would become less relevant?

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

And we're off ....

The music industry's main source of revenue is sales. Newspaper's is advertising, not sales/subscriptions.

Circulation is not our main source of revenue, but it is roughly 20-25 percent of it. If a good profit margin is 20-25 percent, what kind of profit do you have if you eliminate the circulation revenue? Ummm, roughly none!

Now there are newspapers that give it away, but they spend very little on news coverage. Unlike us.

Early on, I could see giving it away online as way of building the brand, but I believe we are past that now.

We are being foolish. AP is a news cooperative owned by the nation's daily newspapers. We ought to stop selling that product to non-newspaper Web sites such as Yahoo and ESPN.com and see how long these parasites can survive without content from us. We need to be much more protective of the content we pay to gather -- all of it. We are basically subsidizing online competitors.

Come on, Frankie.....Parasites? And to think, everyone at Yahoo and ESPN.com speaks so highly of you.

Let me clarify. AP is a news cooperative -- newspapers not only acquire news from it, they contribute news to it. These Web sites do not contribute, they only get. How is this relationship in our best interest?