Time Warner Properties May Only Be Available Through AOL

ryman writes "According to MSNBC, Time Warner is considering making its online content available without charge only to AOL subscribers. Sounds like a desperate move to redeem AOL, but this will have to take on a big toll on its online readership."

Comments

Why shouldnt they

[Hunts]

At the risk of being flammed to death, and no this isnt even a troll. I raise this point.

I'm a company, I've made some content and I only want people who are "members" and "customers" of my company to see this contaent..why cant I do this?

Sure it wil suck for the rest of us, but hell its their company...If you dont like it..buy stock.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[Oculus Habent]

If the online readership of their publications requires no money (most online versions of magazines/papers don't) then restricting the service to customers ensures that they have made some money off the viewers.

Hopefully they will change their mind, but I don't expect the free content to be free forever.

A single, low flat fee for access to most or all of their content would be nice. Say, $2-$10/mo.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[raretek]

With the media, the name of the game is eyeballs. The more eyeballs you have, the more you can charge for advertising revenue. If you begin keeping people from your content, they will simply go elsewhere, and thus you will experience a lower demand for your advertising services. I seriously doubt anyone, beyond a few oddballs, are going to subscribe to AOL just to get access to a particular media outlet, especially one as commerical as that.

As far as I'm concerned, I hope they do do it. This is one company I have no warm fuzzy feelings for, so let them shoot themselves in the foot.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[nanojath]

I don't think there is any reason you should get flamed to death - but it is a good example of why (whichever side you happen to agree with)we used to attempt to impose a wall between those who generated content and those who delivered content. The idea was that mass-media forms of communication are so powerful that you want to avoid too much of that power being concentrated in a single, self-interested entity. I'm worried that we're getting to the point when the up-and-coming media-consuming audience doesn't even realize that this was ever the case.

Of course, what you usually worry about in that equation is what is going to get forced down your throat rather than what you will be excluded from seeing... and you raise a good point, I mean, nobody is complaining that they can't pull down HBO on network Teevee, so more than an issue of rights, it's just a matter of whether it's smart. There is no content on the Internet that would induce me to become an AOL user, because AOL is stoopid access for people who are either too inept or too lazy to spend the fifteen minutes figuring out how to DIY with a browser and an ISP. I suspect there are plenty like me out there. My prediction is they will watch their hits drop precipitously for a while and start backpedaling.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[Exedore]

I think specialized is the key word here. People might subscribe to a pay service that offers truly specialized content that's hard to find elsewhere and provides a sufficient amount of value.

The content provided by Time, People, and Teen People is neither difficult to find elsewhere nor particularly valuable.

What's the point?

[metatruk]

I mean, do they expect to get more AOL subscribers? Who is going to get AOL just for TW content? Anyone?

Re:What's the point?

[Oculus Habent]

Let's take a look at the business points...

• Current Internet population pays nothing for the content - if they lose viewers, they have only lost ad revenue.
• Reduction of traffic means savings in maintenance, bandwidth, servers, etc. (may make up for ad revenue)
• All viewers will be guaranteed customers of Time Warner - they must have paid TW sometime.
• Increase in AOL members, however small, will improve income to the company, also providing them with more ad revenue...

If you were AOL wouldn't thie be beginning to look better?

Wow...

[autopr0n]

Talk about camablizing TW for the sake of AOL.

If they really want to redeem make AOL an attractive choice, they should allow broadband AOLers to download TWs Tv shows and old movies and the like.

Of course they'd rather sit on their ass and wait for things like CDBPTPA or whatever to 'promote' broadband by making computers illegal so people won't steal their crap. Sheesh.

I do read CNN once in a while though, when people to link to it.

The Internet is international

[LX.onesizebigger]

The Internet is international. AOL is not. You do the math. They are effectively shutting out international users.

This won't work, because it will not be seen as AOL having extra features; it will be seen as Time-Warner lacking the feature of accessibility, and in the context of the Internet, users will always choose the most easily accessible source, and that means the one you don't have to sign up or pay for.

Ah, the walled garden...

[Paul Neubauer]

..where the prisoners inside are told the walls keep the barbarians out. And the "barbarians" don't care and build a better world outside the walls of the... garbage dump.

Re:I will not miss them.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Frankly, this "content" is bland McContent. You want the definition of "lowest common denominator" - look at TW or Fox. Where is real news and commentary? There is little to find in any mainstream U.S. outlet. The quality of "analysis" is largely mere opinion.

Stories unreported in the U.S., including about internal matters are better found from outlets in India, U.K., Germany and Israel.

You know, people who can find Iraq on a map! ;-)

Not especially bright, but not surprising either

[RareHeintz]

The only reason AOL bought Time-Warner in the first place was to lock in what they knew to be an insanely inflated stock value - that is to say, they knew their own company had very limited value, so they went out and swallowed another company with greater value, hoping that when the bubble burst, the company that wasn't worthless would keep the natural sinker afloat.

This step is the logical extension of that plan - count on the value in Time-Warner media properties to make AOL valuable as a middleman.

Of course, Time-Warner media properties are only as valuable as the number of people who consume them. This plan will survive for precisely as long as it takes people to figure out that (a) they're paying and AOL toll and (b) they don't actually have to pay it, because Time-Warner doesn't produce anything that can't be had elsewhere without paying a tax to subsidize AOL's misbegotten existence.

Of course, the media-consuming public can be slow on the uptake, so maybe this scheme will work after all.

OK,
- B

The 1980's are back again

[Torgo's Pizza]

Doesn't this just smack of the Pay-BBS's of yesteryear? Where Compuserve reigned king and you had to pay a fee just to access all their content. The parallels are striking. Ma Bell becomes your ISP. The Pay-BBS is the same as these Pay-Content sites.

The problem with the model is that as everyone moves to a pay-for-content model, you are dealing with a limited consumer resource: money. Consumers only have so much money that they are willing to spend on web-content, which we've seen is precious few. What makes Time-Warner so confident that their content is going to make everyone pony up cash to see it?

Until they come up with the online equivalent of "Friends", I don't see a lot of people coming.

A single, low flat fee for access

[dpilot]

This idea won't fly in the long run.

A few bucks for Slashdot here.
A few bucks for Linux Today there.
A few more bucks for Ars Technica.
Still more bucks for RealWorldTech.

Actually, I don't subscribe to any of those. I read them, and I feel somewhat guilty about not subscribing, but I see a problem here. There are too many people holding out a hand for a little bit of my money.

Currently I support two PBS stations and public radio. I also have one magazine subscription, Linux Journal, and a few more magazines come to my house.

In the current situation, web subscriptions would like to exceed my dead tree subscriptions, and I can't even carry them to the bathroom.

Maybe the subscription model is better than popups, but it's still Not There Yet. If I knew the answer I'd be rich, but maybe it looks like a single higher-priced 'web subscription wallet' that lets me get those services, pay one fee, and not feel like I'm getting nickeled and dimed all over the place.