Newspaper Publishers Currently Gathering To Talk Each Other Into Paid-Content Suicide Pact
As we speak, reps from the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, and, of course, Philadelphia Media Holdings are having a TOP SECRET MEETING entitled “Models to Monetize Content” in Rosemont, Illinois. Well, maybe it’s not top secret. But what is top secret about it is, who the hell was left for Philly.com to send? According to our sources, Philly.com President Eric Grilly has jumped ship to Comcast over the last month or so, and we’re just gonna go ahead and guess that Brian Tierney is busy with other things (trying to not let the banks push him out as CEO, pushing papers for that pesky Chapter 11 thing, masturbating to torture photos, whathaveyou). In any case, this is the moment when all the big players gather to try to begin to decide whether or not the newspapers involved will begin to charge for their content online. And with qualified Internet savants such as Byko having already weighed in on the matter, it would seem the die is cast: Pretty soon, you’ll be able to boycott the Inquirer the same way you boycott, say, dial-up Internet or the Yellow Pages — by not paying for shit you don’t need and can find a better replacement for literally anywhere.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Actually reading the article, it looks like with the likely model to come out of this session would allow you to boycott philly.com by boycotting Google. Aggregators and search engines being subject to some sort of syndication right isn’t that difference between the early days of radio and broadcast rights.* If the hypothetical “norg” wants to monetize itself successfully, they ought to take notes.
*Every medium began as sandbox that becomes a business through regulatory measures.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Yeah, it looks like a two sided approach: charge those who aggregate, syndicate or otherwise share proprietary content, plus finds ways to earn money off direct readership by charging a subscription or targeting advertisement or both.
I’ll be surprised if they manage to do it with charging readers directly, but lets see.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
If the Internet has taught me one thing it is that the eventual price of content is $0.00. Whether it’s porn, music, news or television, it eventually becomes free to the end user. You gotta be a lot more creative in this world to make money.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
aetchells, everything was free on the broadcast spectrum for about 15-20 years too till the big pockets figured out how to turn it into a real business. And at the time, sponsored programming and radio play royalties were in fact creative. Sure in the proposals identified the end user perceives this as free, but if Google, Yahoo et al are going to give pro journalism to us on a news tab, well they have a tab to pay or it may well become legally possible to turn the tap off.
lutton, I don’t think the approach is too sided, just that aggregations syndication and end user streams are among the things being discussed. NYTimes trade and failed with direct charges with the Times Select experiment, so there’s at least “been there, done that” voice at the table.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
it’s a tough line to draw… you want some content out there to circulate for free so you get the pull and your brand out there. but you don’t want it all floating out there for free or else you go belly up and no one can pay the rent/mortgage or strippers or whatevs. there are many ways of walking that line, some work better than others for different types of media. i think the thing to remember for publishers, is to stay flexible and open … try a lot of things without a lot of commitment ($ and staff), see what sticks, move forward with what works.