Slashdot Mirror
Newsday Gets 35 Subscriptions To Pay Web Site
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."
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.....
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
$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.
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.