HOW TO SAVE YOUR NEWSPAPER
Time magazine has a very interesting and thought-provoking cover story that looks at the basic newspaper business model, and questions why - at a time when newspapers have more readers than ever - the industry is in "meltdown".
The story quotes a study from the Pew Research Center that showed more people now get their news online for free than pay for it by buying newspapers and magazines. It argues the way forward is a return to charging users for content.
The writer says: ".. I am hoping that this year will see the dawn of a bold, old idea that will provide yet another option that some news organizations might choose: getting paid by users for the services they provide and the journalism they produce."
The online advertising market in the United States is contracting and that's worrying news for those publishers who have scaled back their print operations to focus more resources online.
The concept of paid content certainly isn't new, and in a few years it may be the only way for consumers to access quality journalism. Richard Stengel, Time's managing editor, admits in a comment piece that: ".. the road we all went down - not charging for content - may well have been the wrong one."
Is it too late to turn back the clock and expect readers to pay for quality content?
Note: This story appears only on the cover of the U.S. print edition of Time magazine. It's not included in the Asia edition which appears in Thailand. It is, ironically, available for free online.
6 comments:
Paying for news...What a concept. If even one news outlet maintains a free news format, then the pay-for-content concept will fail, and the one outlet that uses ad revenue to pay for operating costs will make a mint because everyone will go there.
What I believe is killing print is that what we read in the newspapers is simply a rehash of what we read last night on the internet or watched on the nightly news.
If print wants to survive they have to dig deeply into journalistic excellence and provide more background on the events of the day than the internet can provide. News magazines even more so. The Economist is a good example of providing deeper coverage of timely issues than what we normally get from the wires. Newspapers need to stop slapping a byline on a wire regurgitation and instead give us something new that we didn't read on Google News.
Only a few people will not pay for it. I remember the top selling English newspaper in Israel Jpost tried paid subscription. A few English papers in Israel notably Haaretz gave it away for free. Soon the Jpost had to go to free model just to keep up.
The only solution for newspapers and magazines is online advertising.
Plenty of money there.
http://tinyurl.com/dx3lhu
The problem is it is knocking out the paper newspapers and magazines.
My view is that expecting readers to pay for news online - in whatever form - will not work.
I feel publishers should return to the days when all the best stories were in print, with teasers to those stories appearing online. For example, "What company announced this week that it will end production in Thailand with the loss of 10,000 jobs." Find out in today's/this week's edition of XXX.
Perhaps my views are old or outdated but I feel print is the only reasonable way to expect readers to pay.
I agree that it will be increasingly hard to persuade people to pay for online news content (which Wired editor Chris Anderson talks about in his forthcoming book Free), but I'm not sure that your example would work. Basic information like the name of the company announcing job cuts would be easy to find for free. Maybe, as David says, newspapers need to give more in-depth analysis. Nick Davies wrote an excellent book on newspapers' reliance on wire-service regurgitation: Flat Earth News (flatearthnews.net).
I certainly hope that print editions continue. The Sunday papers are the only things I really miss about the UK, and reading them online isn't the same.
"Increasing hard", aka almost impossible in my humble opinion. If I had an exlusive about that company mentioned in the example, and knew that no one else would get it before I published, I can't see why it wouldn't work. Sure - that's probably not the best example but it could work with the right kind of content - content that people want to read and content that cannot be found elsewhere.
I miss the Sundays from the UK too but I get the printed copies from Newspapers Direct from time to time. You can get them in Kinokuniya at Emporium and Paragon. The Mail of Sunday is 240 baht. I know it's not the same but it's better than reading the online versions.
Thanks for the information about the books. I'm going to check them out.
Yes, the reprinted versions from Newspapers Direct are alright, though they don't include all sections. I treat myself to them sometimes. I wouldn't read the Mail On Sunday if Kinokuniya paid *me* 240 baht, though ;-)
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