Rebuilding the Newspaper Pay Wall
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2011-09-27/rebuilding-newspaper-pay-wall
Guest Host:
Marc Fisher
Newspaper ad revenue is declining as more readers are going online for their news. Many papers, large and small, are are trying to get back that cash by instituting online pay walls -- making their premium content available only to readers who are willing to pay for it. But with so much free information available at the click of a mouse, what are people going to be wiling to pay for?
Guests
Mark Jurkowitz
Associate Director, Project for Excellence in Journalism; former ombudsman of The Boston Globe.
Alan Mutter
blogger, 'Reflections of a Newsosaur'
Comments
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When they do their job right, newspapers provide a depth that TV and radio journalism can't match. But I think that companies like the NY Times are dreaming if they think anyone is going to pay the kind of monthly rate they're charging.
I'm willing to pay for online news from an established source, but not as much as the Baltimore Sun is planning to charge.
Newspapers should consider adding value by providing access with magazines and other websites, as well as their own. For instance, the Baltimore Sun can partner to provide unlimited access to the Baltimore Magazine for one low price. Or they can provide access to other news magazines.
Different newspapers can also group together to sell access.
More subscription choices (daily, Wednesday and Saturday, Sunday only, etc) should be offered.
A profitable business model is possible, if greed takes a back seat to serving the consumer.
I'm willing to pay to read news but I'm not willing to pay radically more. That's what so many papers are asking us to do when they want us to make up for the dying advertising supported model. We readers have traditionally provided a small percentage of revenues with paper purchases; print ads picked up the lion's share.
It's unfortunate that this is such a painful period of adjustment but it's infuriating that so much of the news business wants to abuse us, the consumer, for being unwilling to suddenly pay 10x what we used to. These cries of "oh, people just want everything for free!" are insulting and inaccurate.
It's the newspaper companies that want something for "free" - they want us to suddenly account for the fact that another group of people, advertisers, have lost interest in giving them money. This despite the fact that the only thing readers ever really offset, distribution, has diminished in cost with electronic publishing.