Comments on: Charging online readers for news content ready for extensive trial http://www.firstamendmentcoalition.org/2010/02/charging-online-readers-for-news-content-ready-for-extensive-trial/ Defending Your Freedom of Speech & Right to Know Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:38:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Chris http://www.firstamendmentcoalition.org/2010/02/charging-online-readers-for-news-content-ready-for-extensive-trial/comment-page-1/#comment-134668 Chris Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:44:13 +0000 http://www.firstamendmentcoalition.org/?p=6132#comment-134668 Paywalls kill website traffic. Decreased website traffic is unattractive to advertisers. The paywall may seem necessary to many publications, but it seems to me to be an old world way of thinking about how media is consumed. It seems that traditional newspapers are slow to come to this realization and are now scrambling. "The key is that the internet destroyed the economics of publishing, completely and irrevocably. Whereas printing presses were once incredibly expensive to set up, the cost of publishing on the internet keeps falling asymptotically towards zero. This removes both the competitive advantage and the positive returns to scale print publishers once enjoyed. However, even if society no longer needs newspapers, we still need journalism — and in that seed still lies promise for publishers who can figure out how to come out kicking on the other side of this digital revolution.” - Clay Shirky Recently one of our favorite publications, The Portsmouth Herald, announced they will begin charging users to access their website news content. This new fee-based update took effect on November 16. This change has been met with fierce criticism from many loyal SeacoastOnline readers. John Tabor, president of Seacoast Media Group states giving news away for free online while offering the same content in a paid physical paper is “an inherently contradictory and unstable model.” The website currently does not generate enough advertising revenue to cover the costs of maintaining the site and paying Seacoast Media Group’s 33-person news staff, he said. “The truth is that the advertising online will never pay the full cost of the newsroom, nor will a single advertising revenue stream, which is very volatile, supports a lot of local news gathering that we do,” he said. In the ever strategic words of Seth Godin “When people talk about the problem with ‘free online’, they’re missing the point. Free is creating lots of attention, but marketers haven’t gotten smart enough to do something profitable with that attention. If someone has commented on your blog or replied to your tweet [or reads your news content], they are paying with their attention. Whilst not being a monetary transaction, that attention must be acknowledged and the relationship built on in order to convert the attention to an action – whether that be clicking through to your website or buying your product or talking about your product/service with someone else (advocacy). Audience members will not sit still for having their time wasted or disregarded. If time is money (and it is) then the audience member is paying with their attention and expects to get their money’s worth.” The following is our take on this internet marketing situation with some ideas to add value to the new paywall based model. As John Tabor stated giving news away for free online while offering the same content in a paid physical paper is “an inherently contradictory and unstable model.” Are we again focusing on the wrong part of the equation? Instead of stating that offering news for free online is what makes charging for physical newspapers an unstable model, does it make more sense to argue that continuing to run a print publication with a 33 person news staff is an unstable model? Is benevolently pushing forward a print publication simply delaying the inevitable? Is it time to rethink the business model entirely? Paywalls kill website traffic. Decreased website traffic is unattractive to advertisers. The paywall may seem necessary to many publications, but it seems to me to be an old world way of thinking about how media is consumed. It seems that traditional newspapers are slow to come to this realization and are now scrambling.

“The key is that the internet destroyed the economics of publishing, completely and irrevocably. Whereas printing presses were once incredibly expensive to set up, the cost of publishing on the internet keeps falling asymptotically towards zero. This removes both the competitive advantage and the positive returns to scale print publishers once enjoyed. However, even if society no longer needs newspapers, we still need journalism — and in that seed still lies promise for publishers who can figure out how to come out kicking on the other side of this digital revolution.” – Clay Shirky

Recently one of our favorite publications, The Portsmouth Herald, announced they will begin charging users to access their website news content. This new fee-based update took effect on November 16. This change has been met with fierce criticism from many loyal SeacoastOnline readers. John Tabor, president of Seacoast Media Group states giving news away for free online while offering the same content in a paid physical paper is “an inherently contradictory and unstable model.” The website currently does not generate enough advertising revenue to cover the costs of maintaining the site and paying Seacoast Media Group’s 33-person news staff, he said. “The truth is that the advertising online will never pay the full cost of the newsroom, nor will a single advertising revenue stream, which is very volatile, supports a lot of local news gathering that we do,” he said.

In the ever strategic words of Seth Godin “When people talk about the problem with ‘free online’, they’re missing the point. Free is creating lots of attention, but marketers haven’t gotten smart enough to do something profitable with that attention. If someone has commented on your blog or replied to your tweet [or reads your news content], they are paying with their attention. Whilst not being a monetary transaction, that attention must be acknowledged and the relationship built on in order to convert the attention to an action – whether that be clicking through to your website or buying your product or talking about your product/service with someone else (advocacy). Audience members will not sit still for having their time wasted or disregarded. If time is money (and it is) then the audience member is paying with their attention and expects to get their money’s worth.” The following is our take on this internet marketing situation with some ideas to add value to the new paywall based model.

As John Tabor stated giving news away for free online while offering the same content in a paid physical paper is “an inherently contradictory and unstable model.” Are we again focusing on the wrong part of the equation? Instead of stating that offering news for free online is what makes charging for physical newspapers an unstable model, does it make more sense to argue that continuing to run a print publication with a 33 person news staff is an unstable model? Is benevolently pushing forward a print publication simply delaying the inevitable? Is it time to rethink the business model entirely?

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