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News Corp Will Charge For Newspaper Websites
suraj.sun writes "Rupert Murdoch says having free newspaper websites is a 'flawed' business model. Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a 'malfunctioning' business model. Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an 'epochal' debate over whether to charge. 'That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal's experience,' he said."
The sad thing is that the right-wing Fox lovers will gladly pay up, and not even realize that they're being utterly fleeced to get "the truth". I guess that's the price to pay to have an echo chamber.
Rupert Murdoch says having free newspaper websites is a 'flawed' business model. Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" business model.
On the other hand, everytbody knows that charging for something that everyone else provides for free is a winning strategy.
Anyone who has been watching/reading news corp material and comparing it to on the ground reality or watching the daily show at the same time know murdoch and his henchmen are losing grip with reality and receding into delusion.
I look forward to him slowly losing his grip over news media by shutting out the majority of online readers.
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Also, Murdoch, please be sure to notify Google that you don't want their help in gaining readership. I would also like to hear how you explain MySpace's massive success ... you only host that for free because it's user created content? You can't afford a staff with the money these sites bring in?
Good luck, you're going to need it. I would claim a move that reduces readership in any way is a bold move by any news source.
My work here is dung.
If the content is interesting. I guess there's something "flawed" in Bob's business model as well.
Task Mangler
Meanwhile, I will read whatever is free on my RSS reader that sources over 1000 free sources. I will download them unto my e-paper reader using calibre and you will never see a red cent from me again.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I can see people paying for a sub to the WSJ, but not some daily news site. People make a living off WSJ info, not so many off whether or not the swine flu spread to the depths of South Alabama overnight... Surely this genius' comment was taken out of context. I mean he's a 'mogul'... surely he knows better... surely, Shirley.
As Clay Shirky argued, the newspaper itself is somewhat misplaced in an era where it is nearly free to copy and distribute information. What's the point of arguing over whether your pig ought to be pink or brown - it still won't fly.
As we all know the Wall Street Journal has been succesful in charging for content, heck even I have a subscription there.
The real trick there would be if they can pull together unique and novel content, and not just another AP feed in order to get a good online newspapaer. If WSJ can do it, there is plenty of reason to believe others can too.
Frankly I see a lot of newspapers doing this in the future. My hometown paper, the Loveland Reporter Herald is a good candidate for this. They do fairly decent local journalism and editorial IMO in their paper newspaper and the online paper is free. I one day forsee the print edition stopping and me paying aroudn $50/year for the online content instead (which I would pay).
But these are my opinions, YMMV.
...in bed
Well, he does cite the Wall Street Journal, I'm not sure how "booming" they actually are but he at least has an example to back up this move.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Its going to be said hundreds of times in this thread, but I'll say it anyway.
Nobody will pay for content that used to be free.
I'll miss WSJ.com but I'll get over it.
Please put your content behind a pay-wall so that it stops inadvertently polluting the rest of the newspool.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
What does Murdoch know about making money, anyway?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
WSJ gives free access to premium content if you are being redirected from google, facebook, digg etc. Here is a dirty little secret. The entire content on WSJ is available to you for free, if you can trick WSJ into believing that you have been directed to their webpage via digg.com!
Step1) Use firefox
Step2) Install refspoof http://refspoof.mozdev.org/
Step3) Install greasemonkey https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
Step4) Install this script in greasemonkey http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/42134
Step5) Profit!!
The WSJ's content is as "newspaper of record" for financial items. Which means its unique.
Additionally, how many of those "online" subscribers are dead-tree subscribers?
For most other news, news outlets are substitutable. If you are a substitutable item, but you charge and your competition doesn't, you're out of luck.
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As long as there is one free quality source for news, most people won't sign up.
Or, to turn that statement around, the quality of the reporting would have to be a class or two above the free source for me to be willing to pay for it. Which may be why it worked for the Wall Street Journal.
But then again, quality reporting is what News Corp is all about.
On the other hand, there are pay services for porn. Where quality and quantity is enough, a pay service is doable. Probably newspapers are near the quality and quantity needed to make it feasible. And with quantity, I mean how often you need the service. No one in the right mind will pay for a online encyclopedia, with the better one free. But for daily news, and porn, maybe.
-Woof woof woof!
Please, oh please do so, Mr Murdoch. Because I really want as much of your business as possible to fail.
Beetle B.
I'm an Internet user. I'm entitled to EVERYTHING FOR FREE!!!!! I'm sorry. I wish that ad revenue could support the news business, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. The Internet has lead to a proliferation of advertising opportunities and it's all supply and demand. Companies like Facebook are going to be able to clean the clocks of major newspapers because Facebook users create the content for free and don't need any share of the ad revenue. Newspapers have to pay the salaries of reporters. So if professional writers can't compete in the ad biz, they need to charge for their work. I'm not happy about paying, but I would rather pay than go without professional news. I'll still love the bloggers, but there are somethings that require some professional staff.
WSJ is an outstanding newspaper. Its news articles are unique and important and interesting. New York Post, not so much.
But I would also bet that a lot of success the WSJ has had online has to do with a lot of business expense accounts paying for it.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I happily pay for quality publications, broadsheets, the Economist, etc. I am also attracted to publications where jounalistic integrity is promoted and someones job is on the line when inaccuracies emerge. So, for me at least, it seems trivial to switch from printed to electronic content. However, I do not like subscribing - I like to browse and purchase magazines/newspapers that appeal to what I'm interested in at the time and what they might be covering - I occasionally buy publications that are far from where I am philosophically just to see what the other guys are saying. My worry is that proprietary formats will reduce choice and investing in whatever gadget electronic media is piped through will effectively coral me into just one segment of the news circus. So to attract customers like me they'll have to come up with an open format and one that offers me the same selection as a decent newspaper shop.
What does Murdoch know about making money, anyway?
I don't know. But I know this: it sets off alarm bells ringing when somebody claims that a business model which has been evolving for nearly two decades is 'malfunctioning' just because it's not working in precisely the way in which they personally want it to work.
Believing that the universe revolves around you may be a useful trait for someone determined to push their agenda onto the world, and make money whilst doing so. But I don't think for a second that makes those people right - just powerful.
People are willing to pay for content in certain areas, particularly finance sources such as the WSJ or Economist, for three reasons... (1) such sources are based on a lot of exclusive research, and so much of their information can't easily be found elsewhere. (2) the nature of finance makes it worthwhile... if you're trading thousands to millions of dollars in securities or bonds, dropping $2 a week on useful information is awfully cost-effective. (3) the target market is pretty affluent and highbrow and thus less likely to blink over this sort of thing (the fact that you're not giving it away for free actually makes it look more prestigious and attractive).
However, these considerations fall apart when you turn to non-niche mainstream news. Looking at the "free" content aggregated by Google News... it's about 50% celebrity gossip, and 50% partisan political bickering with no insightful analysis behind anything. Thanks but no thanks... I'm not paying for any of that, and I doubt many others would either.
THAT is the main problem with newspapers' business models in the current climate. They are trying to compete with online sources by racing to the bottom, and dumbing down their content in hopes of reaching a wider audience. However, their main competitive advantage is in the highbrow market... which is increasingly alienated by this dumbing-down. Produce exclusive highbrow content that can't easily be found elsewhere, and you'll absolutely be in a position to charge. Write endlessly about Anna Nicole's "baby-daddy" and Britney Spears' breakdowns, and you shouldn't expect any revenue beyond advertising because you can find that trash anywhere.
If so people will pay for it. If you are just regurgitating AP and/or Reuters people will not. The Wall Street Journal and The Economist provide something unique, and have been successful with subscriptions (the fact that they cater to moneyed-folk helps too). To a lesser extent the New York Post and Christian Science Monitor provide unique information and may have luck transitioning to a subscription model.
As for the rest of the newpapers that News Corporation owns, yeah I don't think so. Some of the ones that I'm not familiar with may have sufficient unique content, but most of them don't look like it. Good luck making The Sun subscription only. The online portion of that magazine thrives on ignorant (or amused) blog linking, and would loose nearly all of it's traffic if it went subscription only.
The reason that the wall street journal is able to charge for access to its website is that it comes up with quality articles based on independent reporting that people are willing to pay for.
With articles like Dont tax bigger boobs during crunch The sun is Murdoch's only hope to achieve a business model similar to that of the Wall Street Journal.
While I am not a subscriber, I think people are willing to pay for the Wall Street Journal for their longer, feature-style articles. The WSJ tends to provide perspective, highlight trends, and point out emerging behavior. I'm not sure that this model applies to general news. Content tends to be similar or even identical (e.g. how 90% of all news comes straight from the AP feed). People are unlikely to pay for a story when they can get a nearly identical story elsewhere for free.
Increasingly web users are blocking advertising content using tools like ad-block. This trend will only continue. As a content producer you have little to lose by switching to a pay model. What do you have to gain by giving your content away for free (with advertisements on the page) when increasing numbers of people visiting your site use software to block the very things that bring your site revenue? Most people, if they were aware of the option of blocking all advertisements on the Internet, would take it. How do you cover the costs of generating and serving your content if it gets to the stage where the majority of people block advertisements and aren't willing to pay a subscription fee?
A subscription model can work. If it wasn't workable, how come people pay for newspapers, when you can get free ones? The content is what sells subscriptions. And how many of you read online news? Again, the WSJ proved it can work, you just have to develop a model where it's painless to subscribe, but that you pay regardless of whether you use it or not. Obviously the free model isn't cutting it
People do pay to watch fox news. They're willing to pay something that will reenforce their own views. Murdocks paper are hardly "fair and balanced". Good riddance.
Well, the Wall Street Journal is a good paper though, read by people who have money to spend.
I'm totally fine paying for an electronic paper. For many sitting down at the breakfast table with your paper, reading it on the train, or having it next to the toilet is great. I'm going to miss some of the things the physical paper can bring.
I like to linking to stories and all, but sometimes I want the real deal and even with 3G I'd still like a properly formated thing without stupid flash ads off to the side. A decent app for my cell phone or something like the kindle would be great.
I'd be happy to pay 5 bucks a month for the a paper in some electronic form. And yes it'll be pirated to all hell, but even though a lot on here won't believe me...some people actually like to pay for things...the whole keeping the system moving forward....some of us did grow up after all.
The Wall Street Journal isn't your typical newspaper, it's very nearly a technical journal that is required reading for people of a certain profession. The Journal doesn't report the same news that every other paper does, and it doesn't just rely on AP and Reuters feeds to do the work for them, it actually offers things that are nearly unique in the news industry. That, and only that, is why they can get away with a pay wall.
This is much more akin to the average car, which people are not buying in droves. In this in an environment where it is no longer possible to drain a house of equity to subsidize the life style, cars appear to sell for significantly less than they did 5 years ago. It has nothing to do with the value of a car or newspaper, simply the value of a dollar with has, due to the relative lack availability, or the perception of the lack of availability, to the common person has made the perceived value increase. This means that to get peoples money, you have to offer something extra.
In the US it looks like the only newspaper that will be affected is the New York Post. I don't many people paying if the NYT is still free. The other option is the Sun, which may rely on how much people will pay for page 3.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The WSJ has always charged for most of their content. See those "keys" by most of the articles? You have to be a paid online subscriber to see those. And they have always made money doing that.
The question is what the Wall Street Journal provides that people are paying for. Mr. Murdoch seems to think that people are paying for access to the general newspaper sections that are shared with other papers - global news, national news, op-eds. I strongly suspect that he is wrong, that subscribers are paying primarily for the financial news. If I am right, then this model cannot be easily expanded to other newspapers.
I would also like to hear how you explain MySpace's massive success
What massive success? Myspace made about $75 million per quarter at peak. Their traffic peaked in Q1 2008, and is down 30% since then. Facebook passed them in April 2008 and now has 3x their traffic. Myspace never made enough of a blip in News Corp. earnings to show up as a line item.
Social networking sites have a life cycle like nightclubs, and it's short. They start, if they're lucky they become cool, they grow, the losers move in, the cool people move out, and they decline. Has-been social networking sites include AOL, Geocities, EZboard, Nerve, Friendster, Orkut, and Tribe. Social networking sites have to be valued like movies - they have to make money over their run. They're not ongoing businesses. There's a long tail of trickling revenue after the peak, as with ongoing sales of DVDs of old movies. But the big money comes early if at all.
That's problem #1 with social networking sites. Problem #2 is that the demographic is terrible from an advertiser perspective. Remember, half of all clicks come from 20% of users, and that 20% buys almost nothing. That 20% of users is Myspace's demographic.
Myspace revenue comes mostly from their Google ads. Think about that for a moment. Myspace is a big site run by a bigger publisher with sizable ad-selling operations. Yet they're running Google ads, from which Google makes most of the money. If Murdoch could make online pay, they'd be selling their own ad space. The advertisers on Myspace are mostly either bottom-feeders (links to pages with more ads and similar junk) or small advertisers who haven't figured out how to opt out of having their ad appear there.
He's pretty shrewd actually, and this plan of his might just work. His target audience could easily be happy to pay for something that others get for free.
Think about his audience. They are constantly being told that Murdoch outlets are the elite, and everything else is worthless. They are generally conservative, so they're already skeptical of anything that doesn't generate immediate profits. Combine these factors and you get a group of people eager to open their purse strings for the illusion of quality.
I see many comments about charging for a service that is already free... like he said: "he strives to fix a 'malfunctioning' business model". After all they are businesses like any other, and ad space doesn't always make ends meet these days. I would love to have a free newspaper to read in the morning, but not at the cost of thousands of peoples jobs.
(Most) Online newspapers aren't making money. That is malfunctioning in the minds of most 'business' people.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If the pressure to justify charging for their content causes them to create better content, then that's a good thing.
Better reporting, digging, analysis, etc would certainly be a good thing for society. Someone has to pay for that - perhaps Murdoch can convince web readers to pay.
Perhaps Murdoch can even encourage somone to come up with a viable micropayments system (Paypal?) to support payment for news content and other valuable content.
Of course the other way to go would be downmarket; more sleaze, more hype, more celebrity. I hope Murdoch doesn't find that to be the most profitable road.
At some level, we get what we pay for. If we can get better newspapers by charging for better online news, and a better job of holding the state to account, then that is excellent news.
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People will use adblock so sites can't get advertising revenue.
Donations are only effective for big, high profile sites and even then are only an option if most of your writers don't want a good wage. If someone donates, they donate once and that tends to be it for life.
People don't want subscription models.
People aren't going to walk around in Fox News T-shirts or visit Fox news land theme parks.
I get a 'TV Licence' form of government funding would go down like a lead balloon in the US.
I read lots of people blaming content providers for using 'outdated' models but isn't it the case that, there are no financial models where users can visit websites at no cost to them (in any form) whilst still paying for the running of the site and the staff. The smartest people in media throughout the world haven't come up with a model that would satisfy the average slashdot poster.
The fact is, if you want quality investigative reporting and editorial content, it has to be paid for in some form. You cannot and should not demand charity.
Who is going to PAY to read the NY Post online???
Rupert Murdoch says having free newspaper websites is a 'flawed' business model
Shhhh! Nobody tell The Washington Post , which reaches 1.3 million people in the DC area alone.
It only took one to start the "free" ball rolling. It'll take more to turn it around, but this is a huge start.
Newspapers are having money problems, but it's not because no one reads: more people read than ever before. It's because they're giving away their content. They simply can't afford to keep doing that...The money they make (from ads) by putting it up for free is tiny in comparison to what they make from their pay product.
I've been predicting that the pay model would come back for a while. I'm not surprised it has.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Agreed, I'm not right-wing or into big money but the difference between the 'journal and, say, Newsweek or FoxNews is like the difference between GQ/Esquire and Maxim.
I mean, come on. Web ads and rates are far outstripping "old" media, and now he wants to use an "old" media business model?
Kinda puts an interesting slant to the term "Crazy like a Fox"...
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
1) Go to hell
2) At least mod down for 'troll'.
Offtopic, when I'm discussing the fucking issue at stake? You do realise there's no way that can look right?
Hell, if Murdoch actually has that much influence, maybe he can make it work after all.
Is he also going to start charging for news delivered on tv? I hope so. Why should news delivered over the web be more costly than news delivered over the air?
Regina Leader-Post runs a hybrid model. They have a single front page of interesting stories with links, though rarely the "real" front page article from the print paper. For a monthly fee, you can subscribe to the electronic edition of the full newspaper, which many people do (it's cheaper than the print version, of course.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
claims that a business model which has been evolving for nearly two decades is 'malfunctioning'
A lot of papers that have been around for a long time are either going bankrupt or close to it (losing money fast). That leads me to believe there is some kind of malfunction somewhere.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying the newspaper business is doing just fine?
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Quite a bit...in the 20th century.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Today, a citizen of Boston can use the Internet to read news from a variety of sources: "New York Times", "The Washington Post", "San Francisco Chronicle", etc. He is not forced to buy only today's editon of the "Boston Globe".
Just as any standard economics textbook states, if you destroy the monopoly by introducing competiton, monopoly profits also disappear. So, the "Boston Globe" is bleeding money.
Yet, is this competiton good? Maybe not.
Monopoly profits enable a newspaper to fund long-term investigations for stories that benefit society. For example, Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein spent months in investigating the "Watergate" scandal. That investigation cost money.
In much the same way, the monopoly profts of the old AT&T, a telephone monopoly, funded breakthrough research at Bell Laboratories. It gave us the transistor.
A research environment -- for either newspaper-investigative research or scientific research -- is ideal for allowing dedicated individuals the freedom to pursue their interests for the betterment of humankind. Competition -- with its profit-reducing mechanisms -- precludes such an environment.
What can we do? There are 3 options.
1. Go with a Public-Broadcasting Service model. Turn the newspapers into non-profit organizations that hold pledge drives to raise money. The government provides matching funds. The government, essentially acts, as the sugar mama. There is 1 potential problem. The government might try to control the news. If the investigative reports by a government-funded "Washington Post" reveal terrible things about a liberal politician, will a liberal-party-dominated government try to reduce funding to the "Washington Post"?
2. Go with an endowment model. A rich philanthropist sets up a non-profit newspaper funded by the interest of a billion-dollar endowment. The salaries of the entire staff is paid by that endowment. In this model, the newspaper is free of external meddling.
3. Go with a public-service model in which a major non-profit organization (e. g., a university or a church) maintains a newspaper division. The best example of this model is the Christian Science Monitor.
I think that choice #2 is best.
Regardless of which model is best, we must continue to have newspapers in our society. Newspapers are the bulk of the 4th branch of government. They are our eyes and ears in keeping us informed about our government. An uninformed electorate is the first step toward creating an authoritarian society.
2. Totally customizable as to sections. We select what we see where. If we want the comics on the front page, we get that. This also means real categorizing, including the ability to eliminate 'soft' news crap like "the president bought a burger with the VP. If I want to waste my time reading junk I can go to FARK.
3. Also, any real political story should be done three times - once conservative, once liberal, once approved by both writers. No, Alan Colmes is NOT a liberal. If the liberal is consistently losing, get a better liberal. Once yo do that, WE select which of the three writeups we want to see.
4. The price to read? $1 to buy a week, or $30 to buy a year. Yeah, the fact that you aren't paying for printing, middleman, or delivery DOES mean we get it cheaper. Yes the fact that you get our money for the entire year DOES mean we get a discount.
5. Include video links, but only of news and all videos have a transcript that we can read instead of watch.
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Some of the same things can be said of the New York Times. And if you've read the WSJ lately, it has been diluted with entertainment news, sports news(this is not to denigrate sports, just to show that the WSJ is becoming just like other papers), and all the other things that make it par for the course for a Murdoch publication.
No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.
Here's a possibility: as another reader pointed out, you are allowed to access WSJ's premium content if you have been referred from another site. So what you are really paying for is the indexing of content at the WSJ site, and the ability to read the content which you can otherwise get for free the same way you would read a newspaper.
Education Week / Teacher Magazine is an epic fail of a paywall. Their stores are 90+% AP articles. They show you the first paragraph and demand you pay. You highlight the headline, right-click, and "Search Google for..." and get the whole article. Unless there's something beyond wire articles in newspapers, or the entire news industry goes behind a paywall, this won't work very well.
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"Sun publisher News International calls the topless girls "fun family, content""
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Yep, people do not turn to the WSJ to read George Will's willfully ignorant opinion column. But I can think of no better way to moderate Murdoch's influence than to put a pay wall in front of his newspapers. One can only hope he will also make FOX news a pay-per-view channel.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I am surprised at Murdoch. Not that he is charging, but claiming that free web news is a "flawed" business model. In fact, its brilliant. The newspaper makes money on advertising, and the demand skyrockets because the product is free. Only the internet made this possible. Im not sure how much money print papers made off of purchases anyway. I thought that always covered distribution costs. Anyway ... it is quite unlikely anyone will ever pay for news again. Business folks subscribe to the journal on their employer's dime so they can get technical information. Average news consumers wont do the same. Murdoch should read Benkler. Benkler will school him.
What business model? Newspapers pay out the ass to create content, put it online for free, hemorrhage subscribers, and go broke? It's very Web 2.0, I'll give you that.
I think he's right. They're not gaining enough from putting it online for free to justify continuing the experiment. Our (I work for a newspaper) own numbers are still going up, but they're not going up enough...The online revenue isn't going to stabilize at a level that's high enough to allow the business to continue.
I've been harping on flipping the pay model for a while: right now a lot of papers charge for archival data...Stuff that's old, and has a very limited earnings potential...And give away the current stuff for free. If you flip that, and charge for anything in depth for the last 14 days(or so), and then release everything older than that for free, you keep your internet revenue stream, while still driving a viable pay product.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
You're wasting your breath! They've modded and gone - and they'll never look at this page again.
Now we'll all start pirating our news because they'll probably set the price too high, then they'll blame the pirates (or anyone but themselves) for their new business model failing, and insist the News Printers Association of America be instated to protect them. And by protect, I mean bash down doors, arrest innocents, and harass the population as a whole, all to protect their profit margin.
And only the lawyers will really benefit from it all.
Yet I'm sure that Maxim sells more copies than GQ or Equire. Same reason you see 70 different tabloids. The masses buy this trash, and the companies make money.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
In a sense free news sites really are a broken business model. How many of you have adblock installed? News sites lose money every time one of you reads a story. With ad blockers becoming more and more prevalent I can see the free model becoming extremely problematic in a few years.
It will be quite difficult for the first websites to transition to some form of micropayment or subscription system as all of their competitors will still be free, but I believe it will ultimately be necessary.
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The D section of the WSJ still has original stories. Becky Quick who is now on CNBC used to write there some years back. all her stories were orginal and not AP reprints
I guess I'll continue reading "stolen" news.
The Journal doesn't report the same news that every other paper does, and it doesn't just rely on AP and Reuters feeds to do the work for them, it actually offers things that are nearly unique in the news industry. That, and only that, is why they can get away with a pay wall.
Considering that the business model for free online newspapers is unsustainable, and paper news is dying out, that implies that eventually all newspapers will be behind a pay wall. If, as you say, the only way for a news paper to thrive behind a pay wall is to offer very high quality unique content, that would imply that in the future all newspapers will offer high quality unique content. That sounds pretty nice.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I might even go more than five bucks a month for a news site, but the web site should be fast (Houston Chronicle, I am NOT looking at you), and no irritating electronic ads. I will take the ads formatted in the "paper", but not pop ups, or flash crap. Let me download it, too, not just read on-line. I sure as hell am not paying a dollar or more like the Dallas Morning News wants to charge for a daily paper.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Murdoch makes case for free WSJ online
I think that most folks who subscribe to the WSJ also deduct it as a business expense. A lot of other periodicals it might be sorta iffy if that would fly with the tax man.
No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.
Tax deduction for investors?
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
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Newspapers will be holding back content from their papers' free websites, instead charging for some digital news and information. "We are fully confident that both readers and Google will come to the party and give us money," said News Corporation president Steven Swartz, "and not just laugh and ignore us henceforth."
Newspapers plan to fight back against the avaricious parasitism of Google in just telling people where to find content the newspapers had put up on the Web for free with a new e-book reader, a variant on the Amazon Kindle. "For only $300, readers can read DRM-locked down versions of our content that they're paying a subscription for on top. We can't see how this could possibly fail to work."
Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has been notably successful in selling valuable original financial reporting that cannot be obtained anywhere else. "So there's no reason people won't pay for recycled Associated Press feeds, the latest on Britney and Paris, corporate-backed op-eds, funny cat stories and pretence at holding the government's feet to the fire. And Garfield. What a funny fellow that animal is!"
He also advocates new advertising and revenue models. "The technical press on the Web shows the way forward: blatant and obvious gutter-slut crack-whoredom. Subtlety doesn't pay the bills any more -- we must enthusiastically welcome the corporate cock into our throats and rectums. Also, I'd like to mention that everyone should use the Windows 7 beta. HLAGH HLAGH HLAGH." he added, wiping off his chin.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
A0:Big news corp. tells public they must pay for content. GOTO A1
A1:Consumers don't want to pay for sub-par content. Consumers tell (by not giving big news corp their $$) big news corp. they will pay if content is worth paying for. GOTO A2
A2:Big news corp. tells consumers they must pay for content because big news corp. must pay "journalists" to create better content. GOTO A1
Thats just how I see the situation.
The WSJ has a unique value proposition: original financial reporting you can't get anywhere else. Recycled AP feeds, reprinted press releases, corporate propaganda presented as op-ed, funny dog stories and Garfield cartoons do not.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
bottled water.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Since the journalists have abrogated their duty to investigate, question and bring to account, it is left to the comedians to do this.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Maybe before Murdoch. Now it is rife with celebrity gossip and innuendo, partisan back and forth and economic doom and gloom. It is fast becoming Discover Magazine when it used to be Scientific American.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I guess Ill just have to wait for my Daily Torrent in the morning ;)
Those who buy the trash in paper form are rapidly disappearing however, mostly because they can find the same level of garbage online, for free.
No matter how it is done the news generating and publishing industries (they are in many cases separate and might need to be even more clearly separated) do need to generate revenue. Historically that has been through print ad and subscription. Those sources of revenue have not translated into the digital domain.
Blame whomever or whatever you want for it, it is happening. Personally I'm not inclined to think that aggregators / search engines should pay for the right to do what they are doing because they drive traffic. The fact that the generators / publisher have not figured out how to monetize that traffic is not the fault of the aggregators / search engine nor is it their job.
From an ad revenue POV a direct link to a news story from a search engine still gets you the ad impressions from that page; contrary to what I heard yesterday during the live testimony a direct link to a story does not deprive a website of a single penny of ad revenue that would otherwise be generated BY THAT PAGE ... only from any revenue that would be gained if the reader had gotten there instead from the front page. In addition, if the page is designed well enough it can drive more clicks within the website (i.e. once you 've got them you try to keep them with appropriate links to other stories or the front page).
But even that might be enough, and clearly it isn't yet or online revenue would be enough to keep the lights on. Clearly one avenue the publishers are trying is to push to get the "leeches" to pay; that is the search engine and aggregators. Well you know where I stand on that. So subscriptions are the way but the industry is right, if one publisher does it, then everyone just goes to the other free ones rather than pay until there is only one free one left and who knows maybe that one can get enough traffic to survive on ad revenue alone. But that doesn't sound like a good state of affairs.
So, after all this rambling now what ... well ... one thing I know *I* hate about the idea of a subscrption is that I don't want to subscribe to 10 different places and I don't want to only be subscribed to one. I like that right now I can easily view any source I want and I can easily seek out additional sources of reporting to get other opinions and other points of view.
And here is where I get to the "Not sure how it could best be done but ..." part ... but they all need to go subscription at basically the same time and they all need to do it so that I only have to pay one entity daily/weekly/monthly/annualy. I don't know how to do it fairly, apolitically, inclusively, honestly, and securly, but IMO that is what is needed. A way for me to pay for my news (and that means everyone from the foreign correspondant, to the local beat reporter, to the Editor) without being limited to my sources and without having to actively pay every website I visit.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
You know who else dosen't make a lot of money? Potters. Not too long ago everyone had many pots. Pots were used to store water, oil, seeds and lots of other household items. Pots were routinely carried from place to place, and as a result of use, they would break occationally. This kept a constant supply of customers to the potters.
When was the last time you bought a pot? I bought one 3 years ago for a plant (that is now nearly dead). I suspect that that pot was made in a factory as well.
You don't hear people crying about the dying pottery business. Business models change. Society evolves. There will always be a need for news. Maybe news will be reported by those that were there. Maybe news will be paid for by TV networks using revenue from advertisements. Maybe even news services could be covered by your property tax. The current news model is evolving, newspapers appear like they are on thier way out. Maybe the town crier is posed for a comeback.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
I dunno, i think myspace did everything right to get big and it is still the site to check out small bands, if news hadn't dropped the ball it would still be huge.
That's problem #1 with social networking sites. Problem #2 is that the demographic is terrible from an advertiser perspective. Remember, half of all clicks come from 20% of users, and that 20% buys almost nothing. That 20% of users is Myspace's demographic.
I also find that hard to believe, myspace's demographic was 13-16 y/o, kids are easy to sell stuff to and 13-16 y/o also have money to spend. You also have with a huge amount of music fans, if my space had been done right they could have really made money. Links on songs to download/buy from music stores (hell back in 2005 it was probably big enough to launch its own distribution channel for small bands), ads for gigs (both local and big), ads for peircing/tattoos/clothes (again both local and online) all would have made a good profit.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
When News Corp bought the WSJ (which charged for some online content at the time), conventional wisdom was that it would be more profitable to end the subscriptions and make money from ads.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
"Go ahead. Make my day!"
Looks like both daily news comedies have more knowledgeable audiences than anyone else.
Now, go back to watching the creepy dude cry. Fox News! When the facts don't match your ideology, we'll help you cope... with more misconceptions.
Yes, in the past. Remember that Sir Keith Murdoch, and Rupert himself in his younger days, ran their businesses in the heyday of print publishing. It's the business closest to Murdoch's heart, and the one he knows best.
Murdoch is a shrewd, pragmatic (and sometimes amoral) operator who's good at making money. He's not invincible however. He dabbles in businesses and markets he doesn't understand, and he needlessly antagonises his minority shareholders. He runs businesses that lose money hand over fist.
Trying to get the average Joe to pay for newspaper content may be the caper that finally shows the world that Rupert Murdoch should've quit while he was ahead.
Unless he does something extremely radical, like partnering with Amazon to deliver newspapers wirelessly to Kindles under a subscription model, this is doomed to failure.
See why no one uses Lynx?
That said, I don't see how that would work for something like foxnews or the new york post.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
Some of the same things can be said of the New York Times. And if you've read the WSJ lately, it has been diluted with entertainment news, sports news(this is not to denigrate sports, just to show that the WSJ is becoming just like other papers), and all the other things that make it par for the course for a Murdoch publication.
Except it's not any of those things (the sports and entertainment) that people are paying for. If they were, they'd get it for free instead. They are paying for the unique qualities of the WSJ.
No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.
Not at all, because that's exactly what WSJ has that free online papers don't. Take the WSJ, subtract what every other paper has, and you get what people are buying WSJ for.
The enemies of Democracy are
No, he's claiming the idea that it's malfunctioning specifically because of the reasons Murdoch has claimed (and thus provided a solution for) appears more wishful thinking on the part of a man who deeply believes the world should work the way he wishes it to than it does actual reason and fact.
Or in other words, this isn't likely to solve anything as the real problem hasn't be addressed, primarily that few online news sites offer content that people are willing to pay for when it's very much the case that everyone is simply recycling the same news from the same sources. Most online news sites are largely simply regurgitated AP and Reuters stories with a locality specific faceplate attached.
You're very optimistic but I'm on the other side of the fence: some organizations may be able to use specialized news services but regular Joes will probably goes to the alternative 'free' sites for news, i.e. blogs.
I think you're absolutely right. There are some other good points in this thread--i.e. the one about paying for *indexing* of information that would otherwise be free--but I think that financial news is WSJ's big value-add.
what I think is funny is that Murdoch et al are making two somewhat-countering arguments at once. One is that they can't support themselves by giving away the news for free on the web, and then they go after Google who are offering a free service of rounding up the news for people and linking back to the sources.
The CB App. What's your 20?
FAIL!
I could think of nothing better than watching the Murdoch empire come to a grinding halt and then slowly fall off a cliff (and then burst into flames just as the camera pans away). As you can probably gather I can't stand the man but I think he is probably correct. Just look at free news papers, there is one thing that is the same across all of them: the news it them is rubbish. There are some like the Metro (for my US'en and other friends the Metro is given away at train stations in the morning) which are ok but they have a seriously captured audience and the quality has dropped as other free papers have started to compete in the same space.
I think the next 30 years will see the end of most news papers. News is already covered well by TV based news companies that have already colonized the web. What space is left for the papers?
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
It is not a stupid idea, because it is the only one that makes sense at all. You've made something that costs you money. You want to live from it. You you gotta sell it. Simple as that.
The real point is, that the price and the money that it's worth to the clients have to match, for it to work.
So if they go the way of the **AA, it will certainly fail. And this is what you "goodluckwiththat" people imply.
But if they really put a nice price tag on it. (Like 1 cent per article read. or $1 a month for a subscription.), And then use that additional money to make their business work better, and then ask a bit more for it (2-5 cent for special articles. Maybe $1.5 a month.). Then they've got a working business model.
The only thing they need to start, is news that you can't get anywhere else. Special insight. Exclusive interviews. Reporters traveling to places where no-one else goes, finding stories that no-one else has. And no bullshit about Britney or Obama ordering a burger, etc. Then you got something that is worth my money.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Smithers: "It's a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir." At least Fox knows its target audience.
. . .is like the difference between GQ/Esquire and Maxim.
There's a difference?
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
The problem with the news industry is like so:
Network news sources are a commodity. Newspapers embraced the model to save money in the past - eliminating staff and reducing costs - and it worked because it was a locked geographic market segment.
But the internet is the great aggregator - it kills geographic markets and as a result the newspaper is now IRRELIVENT. It hybridizes television and newspapers, and eliminates redundant copies.
Television news is way ahead of you guys - they already experienced the armageddon of CNN, Fox News, & MSNBC. Local TV specialized on the local news and they own the space.
If newspapers want to survive, then essentially:
1. Gut the network news down to the basics. Make deals with the real national coverage and enjoy a basic referral fee. They should be paying you for eyeballs!
2. Hire, sponsor and beg for local news reporters, bloggers and city/state government officials. They want a venue and you can provide it.
3. Target your local business interest. Every region has an industry that matters! Defense, ag, manufacturing, IT, etc.
4. Become the specialist of your region. Local businesses would pay good money for real economic analysis. You can't compete with TV fluff - but TV doesn't lend well to in-depth analysis either.
5. Make news sharing deals with industry mags that really matter to your region. They don't want to pay to cover local reporting, you don't want to pay for industry coverage.
6. Go where the users are and be selective based on your strengths, not your commonality. Network with facebook users, iPhone and google and be on target.
7. Raise hell and grow a pair, but be fair and willing to shake hands when the fight is over. There's tons of "guerilla warfare" going on and newspapers should be willing to take back the mantle of local coverage.
Newspapers can charge money when it actually matters! I will pay good money for news with sources, views and content that actually matters.
So just do it. Remember your college journalism days? Local, targeted coverage mattered. People read your work - and actually cared.
Some of the same things can be said of the New York Times.
Some perhaps, but not many. The venerable grey lady is a pale shadow of her former self and doesn't really hold a candle to the WSJ which is a much meatier paper with much more information value for the money.
No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.
The Wall Street journal has good original articles on many non-technical and even non financial subjects (their political opinion page, for example, is often witty and insightful). In fact, I would argue that if one were interested in a strictly technical paper then there are even better (and more terse) papers out there that basically cater only to the financial services industry, The Financial Times for example. Also, the audience of the WSJ tends to be upper middle class and higher income which means that they have money to spend and like spending it on fine living so the WSJ attracts more and better high-end advertisers who will pay premiums for access to that upper-crust audience.
Here's a possibility: as another reader pointed out, you are allowed to access WSJ's premium content if you have been referred from another site.
This has been tried before so its not a new idea. The folks at Salon once tried "24 hour day passes" if users would view an ad from one of their advertising sponsers. This was back when Salon was trying to position itself as an "ultra-premium" online magazine that was "paying members only". They no longer do this, so it must not have been too successful.
Considering that the business model for free online newspapers is unsustainable, and paper news is dying out, that implies that eventually all newspapers will be behind a pay wall. If, as you say, the only way for a news paper to thrive behind a pay wall is to offer very high quality unique content, that would imply that in the future all newspapers will offer high quality unique content. That sounds pretty nice.
Paid does not automatically mean "quality". Look at the TV programming - how often do you hear yourself say "yes, this program is worth my money"?
But, on the other hand if everyone else is giving it away for free, eventually there'll only be a few left. And then they'll be able to charge....
That's why you charge for something that nobody provides for free.
Oh, and I got living proof that it works.
In Germany, there once where tons of websites, offering free SMS, as long as ~20 characters were used for advertisement.
Then some companies started to ask money if you wanted to send more than X SMS a day. It went down to 1 SMS a day. And then everybody started to ask money.
And people payed, because they had no choice. The only free ones left, were totally crappy, not guaranteeing that someone would receive it. Often taking forever until it happened. And offering only X SMS in total a hour/day. Which were usually used-up in the first seconds/minutes of that hour/day.
So it certainly can work, if done right.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The thing with the Wall Street Journal is that most of the subscriptions are directly paid by companies or else put on the subscribers expense account. It's the same reason that internet access costs you $10.00 per day in a $250.. a night hotel and is free at the $50.00 a night place.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Fox News, the Sun, etc. It's quite clear Murduch is into the business of bullshit and not news. I'm not quite sure people will pay for bullshit. Especially when your key market for this bullshit is ignorant Americans/English people. Which means they're likely to be poor and less likely to pay.
Murdoch is a tit and I wish his "news" companies would go out of business. It would help if countries would start to tighten up the rules regarding news broadcasting/publishing.
Except Newspapers don't create content. AP and Reuters do. This is the collective complaint in this entire thread.
Ah, but the blogs will link back to the paid news sources.
Stop! Dremel time!
If that is how you feel. Then perhaps you shouldn't pay for cable/satellite tv. I think that would be the definition of not being 'worth my money.'
(I don't have cable tv, thanks to the internet/netflix/hulu)
I empathize with the press, but charging for content will not work. Just like everyone who traded in information, newspapers used to charge at the point of delivery of a physical copy. Internet is different: you can "deliver" once only, and all further copies are essentially free. Charging for an online newspaper is like putting a single tollbooth on a road with a million lanes. People won't even notice.
The only way to sustain old business models is to tax ALL internet use and then distribute the cash among content producers. And that should not be tolerated because internet access should be a right.
All men by nature desire to know. - A.
Can we also make MSNBC and CNN pay per view too? Those are just as biased as Fox News.
What we need is accurate and timely information in our society, not newspapers. I will agree that newspapers are the 4th branch off gov.t, seeing as they are mostly owned by a few huge corporations with a political agenda. More than just general bias, since that has been prevalent since newspapers began. Their real purpose nowadays is managing opinions and information so that the status quo is the only option presented, not research. That died in the 70s with Watergate, rather than any monopoly benefits being curtailed.
Let them die - technology has moved on and so should they.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
If I have to pay for it then it's safe to ignore it.
Works great.
Well gee. I don't know why you latched onto my comment for this screed, the OP seemed to think it was strange that someone interested in profit to make a change in an attempt to make a profit. I pointed out that this is merely expected behavior from someone interested in profit, complaining about the continued existence of newspapers never entered into it (Murdoch isn't complaining either, he is abandoning something he doesn't think is worth doing, which is what all those potters eventually did).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Associated Press. Associated. Most of the stories that go on news services were written by local newspapers who subscribe to those services...That's the whole point. When you get an AP story from bumfuck illinois, do you really think that the AP has an office there? That they're going to waste their time sending a reporter there?
The AP and Reuters employ very few reporters in comparison to the organizations who feed them their content.
Anyway, the AP was talking about requiring payment months ago. I posted in that thread as well, and, among other things, predicted that newspapers would, again, start charging for their web content.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
> No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.
It's not total trash. It's interesting and informative.
Someone seems to take their profession seriously over at the WSJ.
This is why it's a publication that has had wide circulation for DECADES.
People will subscribe to the Journal or the Times when they live nowhere
near NYC and never have.
It's a publication with a reputation.
Murdoch doesn't own anything like that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The Financial Times is essentially the British version of the Wall Street Journal. Different publisher, but it covers the same niche in a different geographical market.
It is a thorny problem, though there are other ways to do it. Join up with the ISPs and offer your content, through them, using subscriptions. No subscription, no content.
In the long run, the content needs to pay for itself. News content is often thankless to produce, and it takes funding and full-time work to do a good job.
I think enough people want the content that monetizing it is no more difficult an idea than selling a physical product. The mechanism is the problem.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
But, they'd have to upgrade it to a real online paper and not the template they're using right now.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Another dinosaur who is not prepared to change business models to survive.
News papers aren't needed anymore.
On a lark I picked one up the other day. Nothing was in it that I didn't already know.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As if anyone would pay for paper sites, there are usually 100's more indentical or very similar articles on other sites.
For example (Taken from google news):... Read more
Obama Unveils New Budget Cuts
New York Times - all 1974 related Â
the signature is actually refuting the "right-wing" idea of atheism as a religion. Retchdog was so prepared to be offended that he didn't even bother to parse the sentence beyond the spelling error. Congratulations retchdog, you managed to combine a mis-interpretation, an ad hominem and a style over substance fallacy into one tidy flamebait!
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
> claims that a business model which has been evolving for nearly two decades is 'malfunctioning'
>
> A lot of papers that have been around for a long time are either going bankrupt or close to it
> (losing money fast). That leads me to believe there is some kind of malfunction somewhere.
>
> I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying the newspaper business is doing just fine?
A lot of local newspapers have been acquired in the process of megacorp
media consolidation and in the process these papers have become just
another arm of the megacorp. The bean counters take over and run things
and these papers no longer become socially valuable sources of journalism.
What "street cred" they might have had before evaporates in a corporate
fireball.
Like anything else these days... there's more to the story that you're
not being told about.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I think the WSJ's politics appeal to a certain sort of archaic country club Republican and/or free market zealot. Helpfully that demographic tends to have money to spend.
For years, newspapers have operated on both a subscription and advertisement based revenue stream. And I don't buy the monopoly angle either, the little small town I grew up in had at least three different papers: The small county paper that covered local interest, the big-city an hour away paper that ran AP, and a national paper like USA Today. Each one had a niche monopoly, but they were never the only paper in town.
So why, when the papers moved online, did they think "Let's be a free news source, with no ads and no subscriptions."? Where did they think the money was going to come from, magic internet pandas? Then came the whole "We are losing money because google is linking to our stories!" episodes. Well, robots.txt can control that, you know. But if you don't get people to link to your stories; how, exactly, are you going to get people to read them? How many readers go to a newspaper's website via the front page?
Now, they figure out that being online costs money, and they worry if people will pay. Of course people will pay for the news, they have done it for years in paper subscriptions. But they won't pay for it twice! The papers have to offer something unique from what other papers are offering if they want this new online subscription system to work. If every News Corp paper is parroting the same story, people are going to notice. So bundle the papers as a single subscription, or give up now. Like I said, local niche papers survived because they covered local stories that wouldn't get even a small 1 inch tall column of text in the state paper. Same for the state stories in the national paper.
There is one other way for the papers to make money online, and that's to offer people what they offered in the actual paper versions. The echo-chamber that Fox News mimics so well, the editorial page. Give the fanatical readers a place to voice their opinions, and they will stick around. Comments are a start, look at the self-regulating voice that moderation even on /. causes, where we know which comments will get modded up and down before it happens. Open it up, and suddenly you have a system that can generate it's own news stories.
But I have doubts they will pursue that. It would 'muddy the line between reader and journalist' or some crap. That all-sacred line that has only existed since newspapers switched from being a source of news to treating their readers as the commodity being sold to advertisers.
And they also create a TON of content that you can't find elsewhere. News Corp... not so much.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
All you have to do is convince the masses that the reason that other stuff is free is because it's crap
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Actually, have you seen WSJ lately? It's completely changed its format and layout, shortened articles, laid off some of the best reporters, and is more USA Today the WSJ. It's not at all for "people of a certain profession".
People will subscribe to the Journal or the Times when they live nowhere near NYC and never have.
It's a publication with a reputation.
Murdoch doesn't own anything like that.
um, Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal. News Corp is not just Fox and Fox News.
Here's the list of Newspaper and Informational holdings of News Corp from their own website: http://www.newscorp.com/operations/newspapers.html
"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." --Howard Aike
Think "gay readership".
Maybe even news services could be covered by your property tax
They'll have to toss out all the shock-advertising and conservative spin before that shit ever flies.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Well, the Wall Street Journal is a good paper though, read by people who have money to spend.
More to the point they print news that isn't commonly available elsewhere, targeted to a demo that has money and is willing to pay for specialized information. The same isn't really true for most other papers. They may have some unique local stories, but most of what is available in one newspaper is universally available for free. I read the Philadelphia Inquirer and its online version at philly.com as a habit, but other than local sports stories, I could get all of the same news from a similar paper from New York, Washington or Boston.. why would I pay?
If privacy had a tombstone it would read "We did it for your own good" . -- John Twelve Hawks
There is a key difference between what maxume said and you said.
Maxume:
(Most) Online newspapers aren't making money.
You:
You know who else dosen't make a lot of money
You gave an example that doesn't make much money, but it still turns a profit. Online newspapers are giving their product away for free. If they are losing money, then it is not a viable long term business model. That is, if advertising revenue does not offset the cost of doing business then they are running in the red, and cannot do so indefinitly.
The Economist is better. But yes, WSJ is a fine publication. I don't even bother with my local newspapers anymore because they have gone to crap and have aggressive (possibly illegal) sales drives that annoy me.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Sorry, but we have been training up a generation to believe digital == free. Since around 1985 or so when mass floppy piracy really started. Since 1995 everyone has seen that you don't need to copy a floppy anymore, just "share it" via FTP, Kazaa, BitTorrent or a myrid other ways of "sharing".
In other words, it is assumed to all be free. Not free stuff on the Internet pretty much either doesn't exist or doesn't get much attention. What do you think the ratio between visitors to free ad-supported porn sites is compared to pay porn sites? 100 to 1? 1000 to 1? I suspect it might be closer to 100,000 to 1.
Pay for what is free elsewhere? Forget it. This is the Internet, quality is never ranked above price - and free is king.
That's where they're going wrong. They pay out the ass for AP subscriptions, and don't actually add any value to what they print. A newspaper should, you know, provide news. Most of them don't do anything of the sort, everything is "soft" journalism and scare-mongering, and people are tired of it.
If the newspapers would create a product people want (a number blogs seem to be doing so, such as "The Straight Dope") they could easily support themselves via advertising. Hell, a paper that could get local readers could make a killing in advertising for local businesses. The problem is that the "new model" isn't what they're used to, so they keep doing things the same way. The guy with the pickup hauling hay will put the guy hauling hay with a horse and a cart out of business in no time.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Rupert Murdoch is interfering scum.
He has no business inflict
The less people reading his nationalistic, fascistic, right wing nonsense, the better.
The WSJ is rapidly slipping towards the quality level of Fox News, at least in the editorial sections...
Well, the Wall Street Journal is a good paper though
Give it time; Murdoch will eventually ruin it so it has about as much credibility as his other properties.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
... the major players in the news industry put pressure on Reuters and the AP to change their licensing model so that companies who purchase a subscription to AP and Reuters feeds are no longer allowed to post AP and Reuters news on the internet for no charge.
THAT is what's ultimately killing major newspapers, and it's going to end up killing the news services as well if they aren't careful.
The sections regarding global news, national news, and everything else that competes with the free stuff on internet are free for all readers of wsj.com. The perceived purpose they serve is to eventually bring paying customers.
The financial, business, and market news sections are accessible only to subscribers.
Also, all content is accessible for free if referenced by google search or google news. There is even a toolbar add-on for Firefox which will permit you to read the entire wsj.com by spuffing the reference url for you.
People who are dismissive of the paying model of wsj.com are usually not the target audience of the newspaper. I personally, think it is admirable that they are so confident in their product that they can afford to charge money for accessing it. I love to read newspapers and and I'm willing to pay for it.
I'm pretty tired of seeing its xenophobic, ill-informed, sensationalist, scare-mongering drivel linked to from various forums.
The switch to a non-free model will only work if all of the major news sources switch to non-free models, forcing everyone to pay. As long as one or more major news sources are in "free" form, the non-free sources are going to severely suffer. Lots of people think, for better or worse, "Why pay for something that I can get for free?" If only Rupert's empire switches to a non-free model, he's going to see a lot of people switch over to the "free" news sources.
And, if all of the major news sources switch to non-free models, that could raise significant antitrust/monopoly issues.
Murdoch knows how to make money in the newspaper business; his right-wing interests are absolutely secondary to his desire for money. I think he knows what he's doing, and I think most newspapers will follow his lead. He won't be in competition with "free" for long. Advertisers have always been willing to pay for paid circulation and well-qualified readers; the paid model will work if enough advertisers (and the wires) embrace it. Amazon, with its proven micropayments and Kindle, is a likely partner. In any event, newspapers are drowning and will grab for any rope.
Yes, but at least they don't lie and say "oh no, we're Fair and Balanced(tm)" and try to masquerade as some impartial reporter.
Those are just as biased as Fox News.
Because they never agree with your views?
The Wall Street Journal can get away with charging for access because it offers something that can't be easily gotten for free elsewhere on the web. A certain type of information and quality of information.
Murdoch will not be able to pull off charging people for access to the news unless he can demonstrate that his service is of better quality or offers something different than the free sites.
That model could actually work a few years from now when most of the newspapers have died off. With anybody being able to put up a web site and call it "news", there will be a market for easily identifiable quality information and writing.
1) Make iPhone apps that ease access to the paper. I would guess people will pay $5-10 for such an app. Notice this is only a 1-time cash infusion, not a long term solution.
2) Subscribers get something extra. I'm thinking people would pay if every reporter had 5 hours of scheduled mandatory online chat time. For other similar services they could offer, take a look at tv shows like Big Brother who make cash online.
Much like the record labels of yore Murdoch has not realized that everything has changed except him. I hope his whole media empire goes down in flames. I also hope his retarded audience are stupid enough to pay for his bile.
On the other hand, the great ignorant unwashed masses the extreme right rely on for political support will not pay for something they can get for free elsewhere.
Although this is a boneheaded move, it will be beneficial because it will shink Murdoch's audience to the point of political irrelevance, which will allow a resurgence of socialism.
If you can't be bothered to read my post on the AP, which is right above this one, why should I be bothered to read whatever you wrote after "...pay out the ass for AP subscriptions..."
We pay less for our AP subscription than we pay on maintenance for our accounting mainframe. It ain't breaking the bank.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Part of the problem is the obscenely high rates newspapers charge for ads on their websites. Where I work, we do media buys, and often get quoted prices over $10 CPM. With click-through rates usually under 0.2%, the advertising is ridiculously over-priced -- so no one who doesn't have very deep pockets buys it. I imagine most of their advertising is remenant ads bought in bulk by large corporations.
Be relentless!
News of the impending death of print news is vastly exaggerated.
"Industry analyst and observer John Morton notes that the industry is still very much above water, even though its 20% profit margin might halve in the near future. He says that the vast of majority of the nation's 1,400 daily newspapers are still turning profits despite the highly-publicized struggles of some of their large market counterparts."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/30193669
Just because Murdoch is taking it in the shorts doesn't mean everyone else is. And they aren't. /shrug
In fact, I get a free local paper thrown on my driveway once a week, and they don't even pretend to need the subscription money.
How could it raise monopoly issues? Almost every industry charges for its products. Are you going to sue the auto industry for charging for cars? Producing as much news content as even a small paper produces in a day is expensive. Lot of full time employees.
From my own experience, given the amount we make on online ad revenue, we won't be able to survive without charging some small fee. If everyone who doesn't charge goes out of business, it'll amount to the same thing.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
You work for a newspaper and yet you haven't noticed that free newspapers are prolific and yet they have EVEN LARGER costs to print that same content for free?
You commented elsewhere that the money newspapers make all their money from their subscription rates. That is blatantly WRONG!!! They barely pay for circulation costs with that money. The real revenue comes from advertising. That's a fact and you should know it by now if you really work for a newspaper.
I also worked for a newspaper, a free one owned by a well known newspaper mogul, and speak from experience that your online model will fail badly.
There is a way to make money from online ads with current and widely available technology but everyone is too caught up in thinking that online and print are mutually exclusive to see the real solution. Once a few more papers start to fail(I imagine yours will be soon), I'll start advertising my consultation services and turn the newspaper business around.
What an idiotic post. The Financial Times as better than (or even remotely as good as) the WSJ? The NYT as a "pale shadow" which only won 5 Pulitzer Prizes last month? You can read your papers, I'll read mine.
The fact of the matter is that (porn excepted) people don't pay for online content.
You pay for your porn???
Newspaper publishers don't stand a chance to charge for their content on the internet, but they can charge for the convenience of it being made available on Kindle.
Now, Amazon is offering them a new sales channel but the pricing is not controlled by the publishers. At least this is the major problem about which the wsj.com complained -- wsj.com: Publishers Nurture Rivals to Kindle
Presently Kindle is not an independent distribution platform. You can't distribute your newspaper on it if you don't sign a deal with Amazon first. While newspapers will be happy to sale content via Kindle, they wouldn't wish to substitute the crummy revenues from internet with the possibility of extortion by Amazon. On top of that there is no room for ads on Kindle, so the content is entirely unsubsidized.
Maxim shows more female bodies?
So true, so true...
God! Don't even kid with a thing like that! With all the bailouts going on, you know they just might go for it!
I will pay a subscription fee to a online newspaper if they give me local content and local coverage that I can't get from google.
Gotta love the guys running the little free papers. I ran one myself once. 20,000 circ, 7 full time employees, worked out of a shithole office. I tell ya, though, I was always man enough to stand behind my opnions.
We made enough to keep going. That's about as good as it gets for those papers. Some months better, some months a lot worse.
Anyway, free papers are taking it in the ass right now too. The Loaf had huge layoffs. The guy here in town who thinks he's our competition has started getting paid in dining room sets, as opposed to, you know, cash.
But whatever. I'm sure your expertise in trollish asshattery will come in handy at some point. It is a valuable skill for someone involved in free papers.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Murdoch must be fairly financially compensated in step with the effort he has expended. It takes talent and exertion to write about the world that has a barely discernible connection to reality. Were these screeds written into book form one could not argue the authors should not be justly compensated for their efforts. Look at Ann Coutler's offerings where many were listed as best sellers upon their release. Therefore, the outpourings of Murdoch ventures should be compensated in the same manner.
Consider to the expense needed to create such a parallel world that has the ring of reality when the minds of the viewers are rightly heated. One prime example is the need for protection for Fox's top performance artists, where were there not sufficient funds a star or two might be bankrupted defending themselves against frivolous lawsuits. For example, alleging ridiculous charges of sexual harassment, of invasion of privacy and of the lack of uniform enforcement of the drugs laws. Think how these tender souls might be tormented and too distracted to attain their top form. So these creative people's efforts would be brought down by simple diversion of the attacks of the rabidness mob. This would be an irretrievable loss we cannot afford. Thus, Murdoch must charge whatever the market will bear, so that he can continue to take the burden of supporting his publishing and entertainment empire.
There is one discordant note, the WSJ must be dispensed with if it continues to strive for journalistic excellence. While we can safely ignore its demented editorial, columnists and arts critic sections, the other journalists still working for this paper must be brought to heel. In my view, the Journal covered some topics in greater depth and quality than the other paper with the greater reputation, based upon past performance and an ethic long gone, the NYT. That cannot be allowed to continue. Murdoch does face one minor barrier, in the contract he promised to uphold the WSJ reputation of excellence. Nonetheless, he has signed similar contracts for other publications and none survived his deft hand as he gutted the beast. Given Murdoch's usual modus operandi this will be a trifling worry, unworthy of the time spent to discuss it. Therefore, I fully expect the WSJ to join the Patheon of Murdoch properties having exactly the same quality assignable it as to all other members and for that he must be rewarded.
Remember, Murdock knows things you do not. He anoints those that govern and he knows that whatever holds the office: Tory, Liberal, Labor or staunch Communist they are already bought off or are simply buyable. Therefore, rest assured he will be rewarded handsomely, if not justly. That is, unless the mob stops being so pliable and compliant. Should that happen - all bets are off.
[citation needed]
Well said. The problem with all "news" now days there's no actual reporting going one. It's just, as you said, regurgitating what AP or Reuters already reported. The only difference is if it's CNN they'll put a slightly liberal bias on it and if it's Fox "News" they'll put an unbelievably over the top nightmare-for-all-white-Americans hysteric spin on it.
And the "reporters" that are actually out in the field are busy taking pictures of some celebrity for TMZ.
You're not understanding what I wrote. :)
In order for the "non-free" news model to likely succeed, ALL major news sources would have to switch to that model. If not, everyone would just use the "free" sources, and the non-free sources would suffer significantly. However, lawyers could argue that the simultaneous switch, by all major news sources, to "non-free" news models, could be indicative of "collusion", and could, therefore, raise antitrust/monopoly issues (IANAL, and so I'm not sure which it would be).
I think they shouldn't really need to worry about pirating news ...
since by the day it's on the torrents, the new paper comes out and old news IS already old news.
Unless they are changing their businessplans to sell old news ?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
AP and Reuters are primarily aggregaters of articles from those numerous local newspapers creating content. Sure, AP and Reuters keep their own reports on-staff for certain stories, but if you're reading a story about a murder that took place in Seattle in New York, and the citation is "Associated Press", it probably came directly from the local Seattle Times.
Comment of the year
Yeah but it's pink. Pink!
Rupert Murdoch doesn't own ALL Newspapers. There's also Fairfax Media. For a list of some of there Newspapers check this site out: http://www.fairfax.com.au/index.ac This involves a lot of issues with the most important one being, government regulation over the internet. The internet is a wierd thing. You start visiting websites and almost expect to get everything for free. If you dont like something, you can complain that the author sucks and then move on to the next free thing so your still happy. Business has been trying to profit on the Internet but failing for two reasons: Online Ads (Google?) have virtually made the maximum price of any website as little as the cost to what advertisers will pay for it; Secondly, current web navigation tends not to promote user-distribution but rather heavy globalisation / monopolies where 80% of 'normal' people still use only around 10% of the entire internet. Effectively, this makes tonnes of websites ineffective and forces the value of content down considerably to where its virtually worthless. Subscription based websites are harder and nearly impossible to run unless your a really huge monopoly, and information isnt really worth your time to research and develop. Not only does this hurt the Technology Industry by reducing effective income/value/growth but it will probably hurt anybody who relies upon 'information' as income to exist. This becomes more than just an Information Technology problem but spills into other industries as well, hurting Journalists, Scientists, Universities and Programmers etc. Someone will say, 'Oh but... good programmers still get paid!'. There's no doubt that this can be true but in general, someone gets filthy rich short-term while everyone world-wide gets devalued in the long term. I think its inevidable that the Internet is going to come under pressure at some point in the future as Government questions these concerns and discusses whether it needs to protect information or regulate it. Even IF, a single Country only regulated their own information and communications, the motivation to do so would come in the form of protected information, growing industry and more jobs. So I'd imagine the motivation would exist (if they could enforce it?). Im not saying Im for/against this, rather Im more the observer on the sidelines. Technology changes and if this was a prediction, it would seem kind of logical. In the end, I think this is going to come down to whether the Internet should be Regulated/Censored/Copyrighted or Not-Regulated/Un-censored/No property rights. I think Rupert Murdoch is hoping he can speed up the persuasion process. If he changes peoples point of view, maybe others will start take notice? Perhaps other Business and maybe even Government might discuss the problem? Regardless, Government cant ignore that No Intellectual Property Rights has great consequences (as does anarchy) that go beyond Newspapers, Pirate Bay and Google Books etc. Governments at some point will be forced to face this problem and all it will take is for a single Company to go that little bit too far. While Google holding almost a pure monopoloy on the Internet may seem harmless, tracking all of a countries websites, recording a countries search queries, tracking surfing habits through adsense, storing peoples records etc. There are some Countries which would not only consider this downright dangerous, but a National Security Risk. Its a good thing we have trust in our beloved Google. Technically, Copyright and Computer Laws partially do exist but have never really been worth the paper they're written on. They simply haven't been enforced so people couldnt care less about them. The odd person is unlucky to get caught but majority do whatever they want. It'll be very interesting to see what happens with this... I suspect some of these issues will be causing a few people a great deal of headaches in a not too distant future. Decisions might have to be made.
IMO you are right about the main course of events though. The press will switch to PPW model before we see the end of this story.
Ah! Someone in the news business!
Please read and understand the following:
My major complaint with news now days is they just don't care about the truth. Either it's liberals twisting the news or it's the chicken-little right wingers decrying America now that they aren't in control.
I'm sick of you all; just report the damn news.
I would pay to see a website if it were a yearly subscription with a price comparable to magazine subscriptions. (i.e. $20/year plus or minus $10)
Monthly subscriptions are pointless. I do the math and say "no way will I pay $120/year for this content."
Now it has to be quality content, which is sadly a stretch for many papers these days.
Think Deeply.
[citation needed]
OK
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
True. They tried to go to paid subscriptions too, and failed; ended up going back to free access.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Sorry, "The Sun" is not The WSJ. Ok, that's not terribly fair, but you'd think a billionaire would have a better grasp of supply and demand. Sounds like he's discovered a way to turn a billion dollars into a million dollars.
The problem is, Murdoch thinks he owns a product, and what he really owns is a distribution system. An outmoded distribution system. Putting the same content, that anyone can get elsewhere, on a page and demanding you pay for it is doomed to failure.
Watch, the next step will be legislation -- bailouts and levies. At a fundamental level, it's the only way to keep the newspapers going.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I'm sure you'd like to think I was trolling but I'm not the one spouting information that is known by all in the industry to be false; so who's the trolling asshat again?
You're also all for promoting some mystical panacea that you mistakenly think will save your business despite the fact that you have no way to implement it industry-wide which BTW is ***100% necessary*** for it to succeed at all. The ineptitude it takes to stand behind such a flawed model is of epic proportions. By the time you convince all the newspapers to agree to follow such a plan, it'll be easy because there'll only be like 5 newspapers left.
So call me a troll all you want, and listen to all those guys who tell you a pay wall will work. Afterall, it's not MY job that's at stake, is it? I'll still be around to pick up the pieces and profit from your ignorance of the situation at hand.
Ave`
P.S. my captcha is "panicky"...fucking fitting for you Chicken Littles.
Given the source of one's check, I'm not sure I'd want to work for a newspaper.
Pots aren't essential to functioning democracies, justice systems, and politicians. Newspapers are because their oversight probably reduces corruption and increases transparency. Pots, on the other hand, don't have these qualities, and that's why your analogy is flawed.
Granted, newspapers might be superseded by bloggers serving the same or similar functions, but it's not obvious that bloggers will have the wherewithal to withstand lawsuits, demand accountability, nurture book writers, and the like.
No it isn't. Modern Fiction Studies is a technical (English) journal; the WSJ is a general newspaper written to the 10th -12th grade reading level. Its news stories don't require esoteric knowledge or deep background to comprehend; their stories are designed to be self-contained. Take a look at two of today's page one stories: Detroit's Troubles Lure World of Bidders and U.S., Europe Are an Ocean Apart on Human Toll of Joblessness.
Neither is particularly technical. Both summarize their main contents towards the beginning of the story ("Foreign bidders are lining up to pick off parts of General Motors Corp. as the contraction of the U.S. auto industry sets the stage for a global reshuffling.").
What is unique about the WSJ is that a) it doesn't use wire service copy and b) writes "deeper" stories that eschew "fire department pulls cat from tree" headlines for "an in-depth look at changes in the firehouse surrounding the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program" or something like it. People pay for the WSJ because they can't get its stories anywhere else, but that doesn't mean it's a technical journal.
Psssh. Ass-money is the least of your problems. Mass layoffs, pay cuts...I basically got another paper handed to me, a doubled work load, with no extra resources.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The Economist, which is also read by people who have money to spend, used to charge for online access, now all the articles are available for free (the complete print edition).
which only won 5 Pulitzer Prizes last month?
Which is awarded by a liberal New York university (Columbia) with a board that skews left (with a few token exceptions). The Wall Street Journal is hands down a better paper than New York Times and the sales and circulation numbers prove it. The opinion on the Financial Times is mostly just my own, but I also read and enjoy the Economist (another British publication) and I find the British style of financial journalism to have a more international appeal than what is usually found in the WSJ which tends to present a more Americanized perspective on things (no surprise there since it is an American paper and serves a large home market as the primary audience). However, the Financial Times is not really an exact mirror image of the WSJ for the British Audience, the FT is usually a bit thinner, very technical (the WSJ is too, but FT is technical to a fault), and focuses exclusively on financial matters whereas the WSJ branches out a bit into lifestyle materials that are not generally included in FT.
Conservative spin? In newspapers? What planet are you from?
Sure, sure. Whatever you say chief.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The difference between the WSJ and Fox News is that the WSJ whole-heartedly sells opinion. None of the facts from either source isn't readily available in the public domain. What they both sell, and in the case of the WSJ we buy, is their spin on the facts. The WSJ essentially says, "listen to us talk about what happened today and you will make money" (even if that isn't true, its still getting something). Fox news, on the other hand goes out of its way to pretend it doesn't sell bias, and on top of that, you don't get anything at all from consuming it other than a bit of Hannatized information about Obama to make you feel smart the next day at the watercooler.
Since democracy, justice, and politics have stopped functioning, your argument is baseless. Newspapers are far more likely to be used to leak CIA agents' names or uncover sexual relationships than to report corruption. Almost all "transparency" will be fabricated to entertain and obfuscate, and even legitimate disclosures will have no significant positive results.
I'm pretty sure that won't continue. It costs money for a news organization to find out what's going on, so either they make it pay somehow or they go out of business. The reason we're in the "it's all out there for free" situation today is the industry is clinging to a model that no longer works. When people had to buy physical newspapers, it made a lot of sense for publishers to just print the wire stories, because without the web the only reasonable place to get them was the local paper. But that's no longer true - a newspaper (dead tree or online) that just reprints wire stories is adding absolutely no value and doesn't really have any reason to exist. Many of them are in the process of ceasing to exist, in fact.
I suspect AP and Reuters are not long for this world, and news organizations will start to differentiate themselves with their ability to gather information. When they write up a story they won't sell it to everyone else, and that exclusivity will entice people to buy a subscription.
err, rather than teh double negative, make that one sentence "All of the facts from each source are available in the public domain"
in the future all newspapers will offer high quality unique content.
Like when we had multiple online service providers with their own unique set of services? GEnie, CompuServe, AOL.. That worked out well.
Me too!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Because they're 10% reporters, and 90% commentators. There's more concrete information in 30 minutes of any nightly network world news broadcast than in several hours of cable "news" broadcasting, depending on when you happen to tune in. From Larry King to Keith Olbermann, to Bill Orielly, it's almost always a bunch of bluster about shit that ultimately doesn't affect a viewer at all.
And it's not for a lack of news. If these channels expanded their definition of newsworthy events to include more than just the US federal government, celebrity news, and missing blonde girls, they would be more worried about trying to fit it all into an hour instead of just trying to find more filler material.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
At a guess I'm too late for you to read this but here's what newspapers are relevant: you're making the assumption that people get, and prefer to get, their news via non-newspaper sources. It's a big assumption and I'm pretty confident it's not the case. It's a little bit like saying "why do people buy books when they could buy a Kindle" (ok, admittledly not a perfectg anaology). I get almost all my news information via the web - I read, easily, 5-6 newspapers online every day. But I still get the weekend papers, and I still regularly buy the weekday ones. Why? Becuase having the hardcopy to hand is just so much the better option in so many cases: at the pub on Sunday afternnoons, while travelling, while I'm sitting on the loo, while I'm.... not an exhaustive list, clearly, but there are many reasons why hardcopy beats digital. To make it plain: you're assuming that digital beats dead tree. Just not true. Were it true, we'd all have paperless offices.
The WSJ is not "an outstanding newspaper" - that's your opinion, and it's definitely subject to challenge. It is probably the case that per the parent's point that its ""newspaper of record" for financial items". This is also the case for papers like the Fin (both UK & Oz) however the opinion pieces (which I get the impression you're approving given you say its "unique and important and interesting") are a wholly different matter...
Oh gosh golly, where will I get my news from if all the newspapers put up a paywall!
cnn.com, foxnews.com, bbc.co.uk.... none of which appear to be in any financial turmoil like these crappy newspapers.
Quoted from CNN "...News Corporation announced a 47 percent slide in quarterly profits to $755 million..." There are hundreds of thousands of people out of work and this guy is whining about making $755 MILLION in PROFIT over 3 months... someone get this guy a whaaaambulance.
My hometown paper, the Tulsa World used to do exactly that.
Used to.
It's not shit. Rupert, when your products can say the same, let me know.
Bark less. Wag more.
Problem is, whether sustainable or not, daily news (as opposed to in-depth analysis or investigative journalism) is fungible. You can get it from anywhere, and it's all much the same. If 90% of papers go behind a paywall, most people will simply migrate to those 10% that did not - and incidentally probably provide them with enough readers for them to be sustainable.
And those news sites can be anywhere in the world. Der Spiegel runs a very good international English-language website. BBC and other national broadcasters (who all have an income stream independent of advertising) also have very good news sites.
WSJ is not a good model since it's not a newspaper. It manages to sell subscriptions because a) it has a well-heeled readership that doesn't mind paying; and most importantly b) they aren't selling news, but exactly that in-depth analysis that is unique to them (along with editorials divorced from reality on planet Earth, but you can always skip that part).
Whether the current situation is sustainable or not is irrelevant to whether this idea will work. And chances are, it won't, except for the publications that stay away and pick up readership from those that do.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
On the other hand, everytbody knows that charging for something that everyone else provides for free is a winning strategy.
It's worked pretty well for Microsoft.
As someone who works with people in the finance industry, I can tell you that a very common conversation opener is, "Did you see that article in the Journal this morning?" It's not so much about the quality of the article in question as it is about creating and building relationships based off of shared experiences. And relationships are perhaps the most coveted resource in this business.
Yes, and it still means it costs them less in the long run. I believe everyone here in the US who is an adult and has done their taxes knows the difference between a tax deduction and a credit, and I was careful to say "deduction". The WSJ is an exception to the subscription rule there for that and the other reasons people brought up in the thread. The entire point was *most* online sources won't be in a credible position to start charging fees, whereas a few periodicals like the WSJ can. I just brought up one more reason why they are able to do that, it helps somewhat with taxes when it is deductible, plus their readership demographics are probably representative of a much higher average pay scale, making such things more affordable.
Also, you do know you can reply here to someone without nasty comments, right?
Well, the Wall Street Journal is a good paper though
Give it time; Murdoch will eventually ruin it so it has about as much credibility as his other properties.
Your statement rings completely true, reminds me of the heartbreaking day when I learned that Peter O'Malley had sold the LA Dodgers baseball team to Murdoch. Almost immediately, I predicted the demolition of almost everything that made that organization special, with the exception of Dodger Stadium, still in a class by itself. Then, here's some of what ensued:
1. The outstanding Dodger farm system fell into neglect, substituting home grown star athletes for overpaid "mercenaries".
2. As a result, ticket prices went up, shafting the fans. While the loyal base was relegated to the nosebleed section, the field level seats turned into corporate boxes for suits getting drunk while "lubricating" business deals.
3. Manager Bill Russell, groomed by Tom Lasorda, was jettisoned, replacing decades of loyalty and stability with a revolving door circus atmosphere in the dugout.
I am not going out on a limb here when I say that the #1 highlight in baseball history was Jackie Robinson breaking the MLB color barrier in 1947. It was against immense hostility that the Dodgers did this, with no small help from Walter O'Malley, then a lawyer for the franchise.
On the field, Mr Robinson galvanized MLB, bringing the Negro Leagues playing style of blood, sweat and tears, resurrecting the old school approach of unnerving opposing pitchers by exploiting every single defensive weakness, one base at a time, scoring runs by base on balls, bunts, stealing bases, etc, caviar to baseball purists, while the contemporary home run derbies are meatloaf.
A decade later, the Dodgers became the first team to bring major league baseball to the Pacific coast, admittedly a devastating blow to Brooklyn, but still a ballsy move back in the day, and a financially sound one. To boot, O'Malley erected a stadium that is still one of the crown jewels of the sport, beautiful and contemporary after half a century.
Then there's the first Mexican superstar pitcher in Fernando Valenzuela, the first Asian superstar pitchers in Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park.
My point here is that the Dodgers were a family owned organization with a proud history of noble and pioneering attitudes (and the best hot dogs in baseball, to boot). Now here comes Murdoch, turning the Dodgers into just another team, gold into plastic yet again, King Midas in reverse.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I'm glad you realize you are full of shit.
Yes it must be flawed just look at slashdot.....
I for one look forward to getting my news from someone else other than the murdoch empire.
That's what she said.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
Unless he does something extremely radical, like partnering with Amazon to deliver newspapers wirelessly to Kindles under a subscription model, this is doomed to failure.
You should have patented that idea while you had the chance, young man.
Signed, Trepur Chodrum
Most people who read tabloids are manual workers who don't have access to computers to read the news at work. The Internet is largely killing the upper-middle class papers.
I don't know what portion of their income comes from print and what from online, but Investor's Business Daily http://www.investors.com/ provides news, comment, and proprietary rankings.
It's my understanding that the Wall Street Journal also charges.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
That backfired, didn't it?
Yes, most of the US news channels we get here in Oz are pure red/white/blue propoganda (PBS newshour is about as good as it gets from the US, FOX is the pits). If you watched the BBC or Australian ABC/SBS during the war you would have thought they were talking about a different planet, ditto with the first gulf war and anything to do with climate change (until recently).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Poppycocks, I say! (btw, I don't know if that is a word, but it is fun to say).
Back in the day, most cities had multiple newspapers that competed against each other. However, in the past 25 years or many newspapers have gone under leaving many cities with only one.
Newspapers were hurt by television news and then later even more by 24 hour cable news. Now they are being killed off by the internet.
Hopefully, they find a working business models. Television news is terrible. Most of my news comes from the internet, but from websites such as nytimes.com, etc. Charging isn't going to work.
If this is what Murdoch thinks than it might not be goodbye to free internet news, but goodbye to News Corporation.
Did O'Reilly ask for another raise?
Adblock only works because sites are set up to include the url of the ad provider. Anyone who took the trouble to code around this could defeat adblock.
Personally, I only use adblock to stop flashing and animation. Once an ad agency annoys me like that, it's gone forever, no second chance.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The basic problem with this is what's the alternative? Papers were having circulation problems long before on-line newspapers started any real pull, and there will always be news on the web that is free, regardless of how many papers stop offering their content.
There's no question that the current business model isn't working, but is charging people for content going to work? If no one buys your dead tree paper, and no one pays your on-line subscription fees, and since no one can get into your site without a subscription no one even sees your advertisements, then where's your revenue going to come from?
Personally I think the fundamental problem for on-line newspapers(and for an awful lot of on-line sites for that matter) lies in on-line advertising. Most newspaper and magazine subscriptions basically cover the cost of printing and delivery(getting the magazine to you and paying all the people in that supply chain). The vast majority of revenue comes from advertising, this has been the case for a lot longer than the internet has been around.
Under this model, there's no reason why on-line newspapers giving their content away for free shouldn't work, the business model is exactly the same as it used to be since the cost of publishing something on-line is practically nothing compared to actually delivering a printed paper, and those costs aren't even all that high.
This raises some interesting questions both about how effective generating advertising revenue on-line can really be and about the structure of newspapers as a whole(one thing that on-line newspapers do is reduce the number of newspapers that can exist since people can browse to appropriate local content within a single newspaper rather than printing 15 of the things where 80% of the content is the same.
As I said, there's no question that print journalism is in trouble, the question is what can the industry actually do about it?
I wish I could say my intention had been to prove (once again) the preference on Slashdot for 'facts' over facts.
Sorry that doesn't really cut it - as he announces it as fact, rather than actually proving it.
Ya think that they will give you an even break, sucker? They will pressure all free news sites off the web by lawsuits or threats of lawsuits. Think, how many nude pix can you find of movie starlets these days that you do not have to pay for in some way? On the other hand, propagandist papers will have a field day, with North Korean, Chinese, Burmese, and other propagandists passing off their stuff as news to readers eager to have free news. And people will believe the propaganda too, over and above the so called real news that will be then inaccessable except to the moneyed classes. In their greed they will contribute to world instability.
So do we think he'll make all of the Fox Network and Fox News websites, pay-only? Pay-for-news only partly worked on WSJ. While they charged extra for online access on top of paper delivery when they first started, paper subscribers eventually got full online access included and then WSJ opened their website to the public. They made a special 'subscriber-only' blogger section so WSJ affection ado's could discuss things uninterrupted by the plebes, AND the subscriber-blogger section had some chance of being used for news-paper fodder should a blog article be well written. So now you have bloggers able to contribute increasingly intelligent user insights -- potentially reducing staffing needs at WSJ depending on the nature of the community.
Now, the 'cheaper' option option is go 'online' access only. It's cheaper for WSJ, their profit margins are WAY higher, and their profits go up the more they convert away from paper access to online -- no printing, transportation and delivery costs of a 6-day a-week paper.
For those that are interested or need that type of business information, they'll switch to the online version due to ease of access and easier search tools (among other benefits). But this *works* for the WSJ, because many receive/have it delivered to their business anyway, so online access might be more convenient that trying to read from a paper while trying to also work on a computer. It also works, some higher than normal proportion are those for whom the Journal is important for their doing their business. At $150+ dollars/year normal price, (99 on occasion sales, it's not something aimed at casual readers.
So any switch to paid-online content is a cheaper option for motivated subscribers who want to keep track of the journal news -- that information is important enough to pay much more than a standard magazine subscription, so I expect the lower-price of online content is an easy sell.
OTOH -- for non-business-necessary audiences with standard-cost magazines and newspapers, with, readers that don't have a strong need for the product, that barrier of pay-to-access may become not so worthwhile. Besides -- paying, for Fox News? Masochistic.
-l
I started reading the WSJ when I was seven (7) - YES seven. (my dads), that was 1972. The one thing I loved about it was it never changed like snow in winter and sun in summer. I think it changed once in those first 25 years when it went from 1/8 to decimals. Still a dreadful shame, If you can't do math you shouldn't be in the market. The Journal has gone to the country on long drive and won't be back. First, fourth section, the 'weekend section' - Trying to reach my age group demographics us gen 'X' with a dirt bike computer guys and goatee - Dude! we are doing a full roll-out tests every weekend! We don't have weekends off. If I needed ideas on how to waste my money I buy a playboy or G. What was that the late 90's. That was the beginning of the end. Then they change the column format: How COULD YOU? Then you shrunk the size, oh it wasn't much but I noticed. Added Color!!! If I wanted color I would watch tv or heaven forbid buy the USA today. I read the WSJ because it didn't change. Then cut the middle column in HALF. What I am riding the bus with the commoners? Finally you sold out literally to who? Fox news or was it the Beging Post or both. I had already stopped renewing by then. Oh, And Moss left the only warm spot in a train wreck and left by then. Like a old girl crush from high school you see at the 25th - Not as hot as your thought she was. I will never read WSJ again. I get better report ing from slashdot than that p.o.s. More than anything it's sad, I was a really good paper, Unbiased in it's reporting (Biased in what it reported one could say). But, cracker jack reporting. Another top shelf drink mixed with coke. r.i.p.
Agree completely and especially for local newspapers. They need to be making advertising accessible to the many local companies who would love to get in front of nearby customers but I think they're missing a significant opportunity.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Yes, I wish I'd thought of it.
After suffering through poor-quality Murdoch products in my short life, I'd dearly love to find a way to kick the old man in the balls.
The WSJ is an empty vessel mouthpiece for coke snorting Ayn Rand freaks and master-of-the-universe Wall Street greed junkies.
Great job predicting the exploding economy, oh highly technical newspaper worth paying for.
What a joke.
... or let Jon Stewart's team of professionals summarise, analyse, criticise, and humourise it for you.
Thank you Jon and team, for saving me from the horror of television un-Daily News.
And thanks to your neighbour, Mr Colbert, for bringing us that hot cutie, the Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Social networking sites have a life cycle like nightclubs, and it's short.
They start, if they're lucky they become cool, they grow, the losers move in, the
cool people move out, and they decline. Has-been social networking sites include
AOL, Geocities, EZboard, Nerve, Friendster, Orkut, and Tribe. Social networking
sites have to be valued like movies - they have to make money over
their run. They're not ongoing businesses.
Wrong.
People abandon social services because they are slow, riddled with bugs, and a different site pops up that can satisfy their requirements in a better way.
People will not abandon Facebook because it becomes uncool. They will abandon it when a better site comes along.
I lost my sig.
Just like all the high quality, unique content in the paid for print versions?
Everybody seems to think I'm lazy I don't mind, I think they're crazy
News for free doesn't work. Reporters and editors don't work for free, and online ads don't generate all that much revenue.
I don't mind paying for what I want, just don't make it hard to pay. Maybe I find some stories worth 0.5 cents, others 1 cent, others 2 cents, some 5, 10 or even 25 cents each. Give me the first paragraph, tell me the price, give me a button to click, and the money can be transferred from my account to the news site. Maybe it means 10 times as many secure websites, but that is possible.
Reuters does not give away news, the AP and Agence France do not give away news. Maybe NPR does, but I do not want public radio as my only source of news.
Murdoch's plan may sound crazy, but it could put him in the driver's seat. If he is the first and only news mogul making megabucks off the Internet, the others will disappear rapidly.
Come on you guys, itâ(TM)s starting to look really desperate with all these attempts to find a fix for the publishing down-turn. Adapt, Adapt thatâ(TM)s it, come up with innovate new tools, programs, etcâ¦Because the newspaper industry is a bunch of dinosaurs coming late to the web game and realizing âoeoh crapâ we have not paid that close of attention to this virtual online entity, now you think charging for content is the answer because your running out of revenue ideas.
Hereâ(TM)s what will happen when you start charging for stories, articles, etc⦠Youâ(TM)ll have a bunch of sites just like the music industry pawning of the original documents for free. Youâ(TM)ll get a bunch of Torrent like sites hustling articles around like there drugs. Itâ(TM)s going to be crazy, someoneâ(TM)s going to pay to read the article Re-type it, then Re-post it or even Re-send it, your going to have this underground digital world of articles and stories being passed around and why? Because the newspaper industry canâ(TM)t compete with bloggers, news aggregators, etc⦠all because theyâ(TM)ve spent too much time âoerackinâ in the cash of advertiser while producing little to any results.
Switch it up:
Let your articles be free for all, let them be passed around, as long as they know where it originally presided at, itâ(TM)s all good. Stop trying to be the gatekeepers, itâ(TM)s a joke. Adapt a social media strategy, start charging your customers a little more for there advertising because your going to push them into your social media outlets. Think about it now, advertisers would pay a few bucks more to have there advertisements housed on the papers website, but also to be engaged and interacted with in a social media environment, itâ(TM)s a win ,win and I bet your added revenue increase for such a strategy will be way more worth it then some chump change 5cents here, 5cents there.
Donâ(TM)t be the gatekeepers to content, itâ(TM)s pointless. Let the world or your town/city know whatâ(TM)s going on and make up the revenue in other ways.
There is also a whole other slew of issues with charging. Google for instance, what your going to go to Google do a search and the results that comes back is what? A link and snippet then when you click on it, it says charge me. Forget that, not going to happen. You can guarantee that this model of pay per story will open Pandoraâ(TM)s box to a slew of underground virtual back-doors to articles and content hi-jackers. Someone should get started now with building a Napster like site for Articles cause thatâ(TM)s where everyone is going to go.
How about trying to actually get results for your advertisers and go that route and charge a little more for the effort and work put in. Were talking localization advertising, social media advertising, niche targeted advertising. I mean papers have not even started yet, there still trying to sue everyone whoâ(TM)s taking there articles in which helps the original article location anyways.
Adapt, Innovate, Adaptâ¦.
Just my thoughts,
Ryan