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RSSAdvertising alone cannot save great journalism; in fact, it may just be killing it. As Walter Isaacson points out in his piece "How to Save Your Newspaper" in Time magazine, an over-reliance on advertising can have seriously adverse affects on journalism.
I would go a step further and say that the limitless choice and democratization of content provided by the Internet (and even the ever-expanding cable channel list) is having a serious impact on the quality of our news, as news stations must compete for ratings as I outlined in "All The News That's Fit To Monetize." Personally, I would love to see a graph of the number of pop culture stories covered by CNN over the last 5 years. My guess it is up and to the right.
A huge part of me truly believes that Isaacson is right, and that micro-payments for content is the way to go. The problem is, as he points out, we have been conditioned to expect Internet content for free.
This mind-set really began with cable TV. I pay my monthly fee for cable and, other than a limited a la carte and premium channels, I consume as much of as many channels as I want. Breaking this type of mind-set of the Web-savvy public might be nearly impossible, but then in rides a white (literally) knight. Thank you, Kindle.
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Last week I read my first issue of The New York Times cover-to-cover. I had, for years, only darted in and out of nytimes.com, reading the articles by my favorite journalist, and those on the "most emailed" list. But with a single push of a button on my Kindle, I was charged 75 cents and got my own copy of the Times. I didn't even think twice about the 75-cent charge, and I would consider myself one of those Web-savvy people who have gotten very used to getting content for free.
But the Kindle is a different medium, with a micropayment system attached to the device/account. It's more like iTunes than paypal. The Kindle, or whichever digital reader becomes the killer device, can do for professional, quality journalism what the iPod did for music. What will make the difference is the way in which people access the content. We are very used to paying to download content.
What do you think? Comment here and/or @me on twitter -- http://twitter.com/joemarchese -- to continue the conversation.
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All this being said I greatly commend NYT for trying something new, interesting and intelligent.
When publishers don't grasp the importance of a branded website--we've all seen those city-branded sites where the local paper's content is a bit of an afterthought--then how can they be expected to leverage digital media into revenue? Let the national/international news sites grab the lion's share of online readers; city papers need to promote the heck out of the fact that they offer unique information that's valuable to the denizens of that town. Then, like print subscribers of an earlier age, they'll be willing to pay for this content, whether through a micropayment program or another method.
Since I spent a decade on newspapers, I still see their value and hope they won't die. If any publishers are reading this thread, I can lead you to some detailed advice on how to save your publications using digital media as part of a multi-channel strategy:
http://www.mobilestorm.com/digital-marketing-blog/branding-roi-go-hand-in-hand-for-newspapers/
http://www.mobilestorm.com/digital-marketing-blog/sms-email-marketing-can-help-newspapers-survive/
Large media companies have tremedous churn in their sales departments today. This is due to the lack of consistent compensation plans, not rewarding veterans and hiring based on a myriad of qualities that do not translate to closed sales.
In addition many do not invest in sales training. Sales training which would have helped them throught the transition to being a multi platformed media company - (Newspaper and Internet).
Believe it or not some larger media companies today that own newspaper, broadcast and Internet work totally independent of each other. Therefore clients have three reps, three budgets no one is working on integrated marketing.
There is a saying that a company is not the sales department, but the sales department is the company.
Why pay for a subscription to a Kindle (or Kindle 2.0)? To get content that's worth paying for, of course, that you can't get for free. It helps, therefore, to have paid content that sufficiently stands out from the free stuff; doesn't work if it's identical.
Do I enjoy reading the 140 character tweets of industry notables, thought leaders, interesting folks I've found, for free? Yup. Would I pay some to get in depth analyses, or thoughtful, *personal* responses to questions, or AV content with sight, sound, color, and motion, when appropriate, done by said personally chosen peeps?
You bet.
Someone has to be willing to pay for great jornalism because we all agree it is worth a great deal. I would gladly pay for all 4 newspapers plus CNN that I mentioned above but the 3 problems with the model would still exist: 1. the news would be a day older by the time I received it. 2. the paper is much bulkier than my laptop with its wifi and 3. I really am interested in only a few of the topics covered by the hundreds of pages that I would receive daily.
I really think the newspapers or the AP could create an online RSS feed model and pattern it after the cable model. Select your categories, select your newspapers, select your geography and Shazam; I have my own personal newspaper (without the paper) for 49.95 per month.
the real reason this will not happen is the ego's of the newspaper owners. The chances of them putting their egos aside and making any model where they work together are about as slim as Madoff paying everyone back
See that is the whole problem. Not everyone likes to read everything on the web all the time. I can't get the web on the subway or on the Metra. I don't have a Kindle.
@Mr. Marchese
I think that your identification of the Kindle being like an iPod with iTunes is a very apt one. People can spend on either one with little thought.
I don't have a Kindle or an iPhone. I tend to read the NYT for a few headlines online, but I read the Chicago Tribune (my hometown paper) usually from cover to cover including the crossword in the Classified section.
I applaud them for taking advantage of the Kindle market but I hope that's not the way the whole newspaper business is going to go. There's still something nostalgic about picking up a newspaper and reading the news instead of having it screamed in my ear by the TV or in a visual jumble online.
Mr. McDaniel is right that service matters more. I have seriously struggled as a consumer just to get consistent delivery of my newspaper, much less advertise in it. "Back in the day" when many people read the paper, you wouldn't have dreamed of having to call, email and fill out web forms to say that your newspaper didn't arrive AGAIN.
The last time I started having trouble I ended up having to write to the then President of the Tribune Company before I saw any results - just to get my paper! Its a shame things have to go that far, but like many businesses, I think the newspapers are at least partly to blame for the situation that they are in.
Good post. But Rex’s comment really brings the issue home – it’s all about relative value.
Advertising as a revenue stream is going to be substantially choked off. The problem is that there is a nearly unlimited supply, with zero incremental cost, of inventory for online display ads. That’s why CPMs are in the basement. There are many other higher value forms of advertising and marketing, but online display advertising rates seem to have become the benchmark price for much of the industry. So it’s not whether great minds can think up better performing ways to advertise, but rather that anything needs to justify trading up in price relative to an advertising product where unlimited supply is driving the price to zero. This will likely permanently trash this business, creating far bigger problems than the integrity and quality issues that disturb Isaacson. (BTW, I’ve blogged on this topic, with more detail, recently at http://tinyurl.com/bwugml ).
Now Rex shows the exact same issue on the consumer side. Don’t think about value, think about relative value. The quality of journalism is important, and the Kindle might be a great experience, but are they so much better that it’s worth paying anything instead of getting content for free? Probably not. So you’re left playing to people’s charitable instincts, and will likely face a market about as large as the number of people who donate to public radio and TV stations.
If good journalism weren’t so important, this would be a less disturbing issue. We would just let the industry sort itself out, accepting bankruptcies and layoffs, content to see companies come and go.
Perhaps we need to let the major players collude to build a wall and enforce some kind of cartel. After all, this is more important than baseball, isn’t it?
BBC licensing model to force citizen funding?
There is no easy answer.
Or maybe they just die and we see what happens.
I felt compelled to respond but in a different way. Newspaper have forgotten that they are still a business and quality of service matters. Over the past 4 plus years, I have advertised in about 40 major newspapers. The best has been the Nashville Tennessean. They give fantastic service and are easy to work with. The worst, and as much as hate to say, was the Tulsa World, my home town newspaper. They are the newspaper from hell to work with and will not get any future business from me.
My point is contents, pricing type, market size doesn’t matter as much as good old fashion quality service to the customer. The newspapers with poor quality service will either learn from their mistakes or worse, go out of business .