In order to create revenue, some newspapers set the bar by putting a fee to their online work; however, this novel concept is fairly green, and it will require a complete overhaul of the newspaper industry.
Subscription-based web content would catapault the newspaper industry towards a brighter future. As of right now, paid content is generally opinion articles and artistry sections. This is absolutely a step in the right direction for an industry with a declining paper circulation. Companies are identifying the constituents that separate themselves from the rest of the pack: writers. Right now, online subscribers pay to hear the voice of a writer through their columns and other opinion-based media.
The Wall Street Journal dishes out online subscription fees for portions of the Web site with over 1 million subscribers. The New York Times did implement some subscription-based data, but digressed back to free content on Sept. 19.
Papers often don't offer paid online services because it effects the number of page views they receive. When an article shows up on a search engine and users click, they may be barred from the article because they haven't paid.
Which is more important: money or page views?
The New York Times claims its page views are the most important because they create a venue for advertisements, yielding monetary gain. The Times had 227,000 paying subscribers and collected over $10 million a year from them. Had they just enticed more paid subscribers, their problem would have been solved. There would have been more money and less annoying advertisements. It's a win-win situation.
Newspaper companies will have to change their whole mentality for this to work. Online is not like print; revenue needs to be collected from a different source other than advertising.
Papers should go with a full-on paid approach. Everything except what is on the front page of the day's paper should cost readers money. To keep the money flowing, newspaper companies should work on obtaining exclusive information and utilize the Web to the fullest extent. The Orlando Sentinel's coverage of the Casey Anthony case is a good example. If articles used visual and interactive concepts to help learn about the day's news, I'd certainly pay for it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I see where you're coming from, but I think with all the blogs and billions of news outlets online people wouldn't even bother to go online and seek it out. Online news generates through word of mouth and if I can't link someone to a topic to talk about it, I probably won't go back. I NEVER read the New York Times online until it went free.
News isn't exactly exclusive and while the Times may have a lot of loyal readers, those are the ones who will get the paper. They HAVE to pull our generation in if they want to continue to sell and our generation is so used to free content they won't pay.
That sucks. I don't wanna do that. Paper's get revenue from online advertisers and view counts. Everytime someone reads an article, we get loads of money as long as there's loads of people clicking in. That's why creating handy traps like photo galleries is so important. Converged Journalism gets the bills paid and the bank fed.
The money for subscription on papers delivered to your front door covers distribution and paper cost. The revenue for print goes back to the same as online right now.
I definitely agree. If readers paid for online news, I think the declining print readership would improve because they would have no other option than to pay. When readers can get something for free, why pay for the paper version? I wrote something similar in my blog :)
Post a Comment