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Newsday Gets 35 Subscriptions To Pay Web Site

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-thats-lucrative dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "In late October, Newsday put its web site behind a pay wall, one of the first non-business newspapers to take the pay wall plunge, so Newsday has been followed with interest in media circles anxious to learn how the NY Times own plans to put up a pay wall may work out. So how successful has Newsday's paywall been? The NY Observer reports that three months into the experiment only 35 people have signed up to pay $5 a week to get unfettered access to newsday.com. Newsday's web site redesign and relaunch reportedly cost about $4 million and the 35 people who've signed up have earned Newsday about $9,000. Still publisher Terry Jimenez is unapologetic. 'That's 35 more than I would have thought it would have been,' said Jimenez to his assembled staff, according to five interviews with Newsday employees. The web project has not been a favorite among Newsday employees who have recently been asked to take a 10 percent pay cut. 'The view of the newsroom is the web site sucks,' says one staffer. 'It's an abomination,' adds another."

9 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Ha! by ancientt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ha! Take that long standing respectable media. Funny, I'd bet they'd be better off without a website at all. Now there is a way to fix this, though I'm interested in feedback before I try to do anything about it. What we need is a micro-payment aggregation service combined with an advertisement blocking proxy server. Opera is doing the rebuilding on the fly for smaller and faster page loads, and if they combined that with an ad-blocking service for $10/yr and had a "$.02" payment button that sites like Newsday could contract for, then everybody would win.

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    B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
    1. Re:Ha! by KevinKnSC · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And furthermore, it's actually less expensive to buy a Newsday print subscription than it is to get just the electronic access, so the article could really be rephrased as "Thirty-five people pay extra to not get a real newspaper."

    2. Re:Ha! by delinear · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think a newspaper has to be entirely irrelevant. There's little news so vital to me that I can't wait a few hours to hear it, one area traditional media could compete is quality. Well-written, thought-out articles with fact checking (remember that?) would be a value proposition that many of the internet sources, with their rush to be first to publish couldn't afford. If you're not going to print for several hours, use that time to make what you print much better than everyone else and I would happily consume your product because I only have to read it once, not read countless rumours, counter-claims, retractions, etc.

      Unfortunately this type of quality reporting was dead even before the internet came along. There just wasn't a suitable alternative at the time to eat their lunch, the 'net just happened to be the first one that came along and fit the bill. The internet didn't kill traditional newspapers, they committed suicide a long time ago.

  2. Nobody is going to pay for news by C_Kode · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nobody is going to pay for a news site for the most part. You can easily get the same news elsewhere for free. The only places I've seen people pay for something like this is cable TV. The reason for that is because you had too to get all the major content.

    The reason you can't do that with websites is that any old Joe can't create a TV station, but they can create a news website. If Newssite1.com makes you pay, everyone will go to Newssite2.com to get the same information free.

    1. Re:Nobody is going to pay for news by Migraineman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nobody is going to pay for a news site for the most part. You can easily get the same news elsewhere for free.

      And to continue this point, it's not just the "free" aspect, it's also the ability to go directly to the source for the information.

      Back in the day, actually not too long ago, the news outlets (papers, radio, TV) served a purpose - they provided a conduit for information transfer. Folks had information (big game scores, courtroom shenanignas, weather forecasts) and needed a way to convey that information to other folks. Similarly, the "end users" desired the information, but didn't have a way to get it directly. The news media connected the two groups, and served a valuable purpose.

      Enter the Intarweb. Suddenly, the end user is directly connected to the information source. The news media middlemen are left holding their hats, scrambling for significance.

      Probably the worst thing that has happened to the media outlets is transparency. When you have the web at yor fingertips, it's particularly easy to notice that the vast majority of news outlets are simply re-branding the AP or Reuters news feeds. Their collective credibility is shot to hell. They've been branded as "middle men" and not as information sources. The web allows you to go directly to the source. Why would I tolerate some reporter's re-hash of a story when I can interpret the source for myself? Case and point - I can get weather information directly from the National Weather Service rather than getting the dumbed-down version spewed by the local TV station or newspaper. They don't add value (actually they remove it) so I bypass them ... because I can.

  3. For the record, by aengblom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For the record, they sell access to the web site for $5 per week, while they sell the paper for $4.50 including access to the web site. Basically those 35 subscribers are paying 50 cents per day to not get the paper delivered. They also give free access to all people who subscribe to the local cable provider -- which is a lot of people for the local paper.

    Plus it's Newsday.....

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    So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
  4. "Free Online Newspaper With Your HBO" by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's how I have heard this categorized here in the NY area. See, if you are a Cablevision/Optimum Online sub, you get Newsday Online for free. "That's a $260 Value -- If You Sign Before Midnight Tonight!"

    Remember, Newsday is owned by The Dolans, the certifiably insane family that also owns and/or operates Madison Square Garden, the Knicks, the Rangers, the Liberty, Clearview Cinemas, the Beacon Theater, Radio Friggin' Music Hall, and prolly my toaster oven as well, haven't checked lately. This isn't about love or money for the newspaper, this is about things like "synergies" and "paradigms" and "leverage." These are the kind of robber baron sociopaths who would burn an orphanage they own to the ground if the price of diapers got higher than they had budgeted, or they needed to light a lot of their cigars at once and they only had one match left.

  5. Re:Abomination? by krou · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's a terribly designed site. At first glance, you can't tell what are links, and what is just plain text. There are just about zero visual clues as to where you should go, what you should do, or what you should be reading. There seems to be no coherent logic to the layout, either, and the dark background with white text does them no favours. If they paid $4 million for this, they got ripped off.

    --
    'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
  6. They want how much? by LaminatorX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $260 a year for access to a B-list newspaper site? Really? The Wall Street Journal online only is $110/year ant they're The Wall Street Journal.

    Good luck.