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Who Will Control the Cost of the NYT On Digital Readers?
RobotRunAmok writes "Ryan Tate, at Gawker, describes the 'heated turf war' waging at the New York Times. The print and digital divisions have differing views over how much a subscription to the Gray Lady (iPad edition) should cost. The print troops believe $20-$30 monthly is the proper price point (fearing that setting the mark any lower will jeopardize print distribution), while the digital soldiers are digging in their heels at $10 a month. The Kindle version is already managed by the Print Army, so don't count on logic necessarily driving any decisions here. It's complicated: the Web version of the paper is still free through 2011, and the computer 'Times Reader' has already been released and priced at $14.95 monthly."
Does it really matter? The price doesn't change the fact that the NYT's journalism is basically shit most of the time, even though they are one of the most "respect" papers in the US.
Their coverage of the run-up to the Iraqi War was abysmal, for instance. It was pretty clear then that they should have done their journalistic duty and printed much more about how those pushing for war were just plain wrong. And now we know that they basically just repeated the lies and bullshit spewed by various Republican and Democrat politicians during that time period.
It's not a "Democrats vs. Republicans" or "left vs. right" situation, either. They should be tearing Obama and the Democrats several new assholes for their handling of Wall Street, Afghanistan and other issues. But for whatever reason, they don't, or if they try to it's quite feebly done.
The NYT, were it actually concerned with journalism, would themselves be ripping into Wall Street and corporate America. But then again, I suppose they can't, because they seem more concerned with advertising revenue over realistic and quality reporting.
Regardless of what they charge, I'm not going to pay any money for their content when they don't ask the hard-hitting questions of politicians and corporations, and do the real investigative journalism that's worthy of money.
Whether the digital edition affects sales of the print edition is beside the point. Online news is going to affect the sales of the print edition anyway. the question is whether the NYT wants a segment of that or not.
Digital media is distruptive technology. If the NYT doesn't clobber their print sales someone else is going to do the job for them.
>"The consumer will. The consumer ultimately determines the value of any item sold."
How's that working out for you with Comcast and Shell Oil, by the way? They both accepted it when you put your foot down, did they?
A good newspaper should be doing that for you. Newspapers are no longer about delivering 'breaking news'. The 24/7 news cycle has ended that. The typical readership of a quality newspaper know what happened in the world yesterday. They want to know why it happened and what the consequences might be.
Today newspapers should be about the insightful commentary, bringing together of sources and unique investigative journalism. Of course these are also the most expensive parts, so have been targeted for cuts by many newspapers.
The problem the print division at the NYT faces is that the cost per printed copy is directly dependent on subscription volume. So if folk stop taking the paper copy, they cost to produce it increases - you have all the same costs for typesetting and running a print works, you just saved some cents worth of paper and a blob of ink.
To me? I dont think the NYT is worth more than $4.99 a month. and that is only if it's available on ANY of my readers not just a blessed one they want me to have.
Honestly, they have to compete with every other source of news on the net, Many free, some I pay for. and honestly the "lyfestyle" and other sections I really dont care about so they have a zero value to me. AND not being a New York resident it has even lower value to me as it's only a source for national news which I can get myself elsewhere. Google,CNN,Yahoo and others give me a ton of that for free. So outside of NY the NYT has even a lower value, most people I know think my $4.99 is way too much.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Different markets.
NYT has competition. There are still plenty of news sources out there, even if you're in the market for local news in New York City. If they set their price too high, people will choose others. They aren't a monopoly.
Comcast is a monopoly, at least in my area. If Comcast sets their price too high, I could still choose others, but no one else is authorized to use the cheapest means to reach my house (coaxial cable), so it's not competition in any real sense. I can't go to anyone else and get wired Internet for any price, and wireless options are either slower or more expensive (and usually both). The only other possible competitor is our somewhat-new local phone company (Fairpoint) and they are imploding at the moment, so I don't expect to see any new service offerings from them between now and their Chapter 7 declaration, which many of us are expecting any month now.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I had a Kindle subscription to the NYT, but canceled it recently because it didn't have a lot of the cool stuff - like the puzzle. I couldn't see the point to paying for a neutered product.