As USA Today plans to bifurcate online and print content, one of its competitors is further consolidating online and print operations, in advance of erecting a paywall early next year. From a post on Slate about remarks New York Times
Executive Editor Bill Keller made to a staff meeting last week:
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| Keller |
The
Times will be creating a "sunrise edition" of its homepage -- a "fully refreshed" new product rather than an updated version of the previous night's print edition. Instead of holding big stories for the print paper, Keller said, the
Times will publish for "maximum impact," putting pieces out online in the daytime to compete for immediate attention.
That online morning paper will be another step toward integrating and consolidating the online and print operations. Keller said that the Web and the paper will share a single morning news meeting, and that the afternoon Page One meeting will now include the planning for the sunrise homepage.
I think the crunch will come for USAT in February, when they will face the prospect of publishing before the Superball is over in Dallas.
ReplyDeleteIf they don't have a final score in that paper, USAT will be cooked, roasted and fried.
They have already stopped printing the scores of late games, if you have not noticed, and deadlines are being moved earlier.
So will they make the Superbowl results or not? Or are they just going to tell USAT sports enthusiasts to go to the Web to read more, while running this expanded woman's report.
Finally sombody gets it enough to actually do it. Good for the NYT. I think people will pay for news when reporters get it first and get it right.
ReplyDeleteWhile USAT management twiddles its thumbs with memos after memos about what its new editing structure will look like and the meetings this clueless crew will hold, the competition actual HAS a plan. As 7:03 so aptly notes. THEY get it.
ReplyDeleteI worked for a small place that started sunrising almost a decade ago. Imagine my dismay when I got to Gannett and had to listen to the endless debate about print vs. digital, long after the non-Gannett had melded the two into a seamless flow of newsgathering and reporting.
ReplyDeleteIMHO, the former digital guy didn't seem to get the news thing at all. I believe that just might have set Gannett back years, and I'm not sure it will ever regain lost ground.
But Gannett made the choice, it seems, to switch to a marketing focus. Now it has to live with that decision at a time when it's trying to woo boomers. Boomers, I believe, want the facts.
This doesn't sound so different from what USA Today and others are trying, although not as precisely timed. Good luck to them.
ReplyDeleteBut however you time or package the news, the bottom line remains: WILL people be willing to pay for news -- even NY Times news -- that they can learn for free probably within 30 minutes of the pay-wall being up each morning?
The Times has a loyal, built-in audience of the intelligentia, and even they have thus far been unwilling to pay.
No huzzahs yet, I'd say. Let's wait and see if it works at all.
The "pay gate" is the big variable here. Publishing more stories first on-line will make the edition on your doorstep that much more unneccessary. But if people are spending the same amount to go through the electronic pay gate as if to go through the "dead-tree" pay gate, it makes little difference.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, what they'll be doing is enhancing their overall New York Times product experience, by a multifold! (Sorry... Couldn't resist the Gannettspeak.)
NYT has discovered dayparting for its website! And plans unified news meetings! How boldly 2007 of them! If they get it, they did so by watching others do it for years.
ReplyDelete