The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn't the Internet; it's us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That's a consumer’s dream, but eventually it's going to collide with reality: if newspapers' profits vanish, so will their product.Please support Gannett Blog with a voluntary $5 subscription; see the "Donate" tool in the green sidebar, upper right. Or, send cash/checks payable to: Jim Hopkins, 584 Castro St. #823, San Francisco, Calif., 94114-2594.
My total earnings today:
ReplyDeleteAdvertising sales: $5.11
Subscriptions: $5
THis is another one of those stories blaming the readers for what is happening. Yes, they want free news. But we didn't have to give it to them for free, and we still don't have to do that. The problem is not the readers, it is the publishers.
ReplyDeleteThe publishers look at the Internet and see it as a way of eliminating all of the messy production parts of a newspaper, while keeping the news and ad revenues that make them all that money. So how is that working out for them? In spite of what these consultants and Nostradamus-clones say, I do not see the Internet producing anywhere near the sort of revenues needed to support newsrooms and news gathering as print ads did. The only people getting rich from the current situation are Google execs and investors. They don't pay for the links, either, and they get to run ads on their link pages. What a great business model: no overhead, and unlimited ad revenues.
There are newspapers that refuse to allow Google to link, and they seem to be surviving. I think that will eventually have to be the solution. Book publishers don't give away their books online for free, because they know they won't make any sales in stores if they do that.
The only way for print to survive is to have all newspapers and all information news sites charge a subscription fee.
ReplyDeleteBut seeing how it has already been put out there for free, I do not think that there is a way to put the genie back in the bottle.
Ex from Lansing.
Newspapers can do what the Wall Street Journal does: give headlines and the lede online, but charge for reading the rest of the story.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't work at our site. Too many of our heds are misspelled or garbled online, and quite often the lede sucks. Sure wouldn't lure me in. And many of the posts from readers on the stories note just that fact.
ReplyDeleteWould it be an anti-trust violation for newspaper groups like Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune, NY Times, etc. to get together and simultaneously switch their websites to paid subscription, ending all free access?
ReplyDelete4:55 PM
ReplyDeleteHow would that prevent people from going to places like Topix?
Anon @ 1 p.m.: You in Phoenix?
ReplyDelete8:12 p.m. Nope. Wisconsin. I guess it's the same all over the place.
ReplyDelete