There is an interesting discussion under way at Core Economics about the price of The Age newspaper. Well, that’s how the conversation started. Now it has evolved into a discussion about alternatives to the print newspaper for accessing news and information. In the mix there are mentions of the iPhone and the Kindle from Amazon.
Newsagents ought to be engaged in similar discussions. Alas, we are not. This is due to publishers telling us it is business as usual and due to ignorance. One day we will, with hindsight, realise we missed an opportunity. Of course, some individual newsagents have not missed the opportunity and are reinventing their newsagencies already.
Can you give us an example of a newsagency that’s “moving with the times”? I’d be interested in taking a look at other people’s ideas.
Joe, there are plenty. Some I talk about at this blog. What starte are you in?
interesting reading the comments from the readers of The Age-
drop the subscription and get it for free online and in the future it’ll be sent to their ipod
and/or kindle ( they hope it’s for free still !!)
Fairfax and Newscorp have performed a self-inflicted gunshot wound to their head by providing the newspapers online for free and now that the horse has bolted are wondering how they can charge people to read the articles online.
the issue for the Fairfax et al is going to be what are they going to charge -that is per article or per page.
cheers.
p.s i like the reason to stop paying for it on eco-friendly reasons.
newspapers are becoming a pain anyway, if we really sat down and did the maths i would be suprised if anyone is actually making money by selling them, especially when home deliveries are factored in and the extended opening hours to cater for them. I know people will still say that it brings people to the shop and they may purchase something else, I think it is fast becoming the case that they come to my shop to buy something else first and happen to pick up a newspaper while they are here. The key to getting people in store is not newspapers, but great staff, service and having new ideas to fill a need in the market place. I have really pushed hard into ink/toner, stationery, mobile phones and books as there was a need for this where i am(country town NQ). If it wasnt for newspapers I would not be getting out of bed at 4am every morning
Rick,
Email the QNF, they have a calculator that will tell you what you are earning from papers. You may get a surprise!
theo,
Fairfax and News provie online news content for free because that is what a large section of the potential online audience expects. If they charged online readers they simply wouldn’t get the site traffic they want/need.
If one did charge for online articles, a huge percentage of readers would simply go to another sight that was free.
Jarryd, How many journalists work for free?
I’d rather pay a small fee for online media, if I get to escape the advertising that pays for free sites to operate.
I think we all can see there’s tricky times ahead with this subject.
Granted a huge percentage of their readership would go to another free online newsweb site like CNN or BBC .I’m aware of that but at the end of the day you can not keep giving away free content because someboby pays for the operational cost of the “free” stuff,
and you can only, for so long keep it free before those costs eat into the bottom line.
Also one of the responses in the article bought The Age stated that they only bought The Age for the tropfeast dvd/cd.
guess what they paid $2.40 for the dvd because the paper gave them -if only for this occassion- a reason to buy The Age.
I’m not naive, newspapers have got a huge task ahead to survive but
in the long run we all end paying in some form or another for the freebies.
Sorry to diverse from the topic now but remember the days ATM were free to use now look what has happened
cheers
In vic. Would love to see some well prepared shops in the inner city.
Mark,
I would be interested in any data that you are aware of that proves all print advertising is making the transition to online. I stress all because my gut feeling is that it is not and that Fairfax & News are suffering losses and declining revenue due to less advertising in general. If this is the case then it is only being exacerbated by the decline in advertising spending as well.
It may be naive to presume that online advertising (hence revenue) is being substituted with the equivalent increase in online ad revenue though I don’t deny it is one of the factors.
Michael,
You’re well in the minority if you’re willing to pay for content.
I would however point out that paying for the content will certainly not give you access to advert free news. There will still be advertisements.
Who says it won’t be the publishers that will wear the decline in their revenue streams? News-based publishing may not be as profitable in the future as it is now.
Angelo, I think that we are seeing a migration online and an overall decline in advertising. Businesses today have many channels through which they can reach their retailers. Marketing departments are being let go because the distance between the message and the intended recipient is shorter than ever before. As marketing departments go so will the spen in mainstream media.
I agree that the landscape for marketers is looking very bleak. The larger companies that utilize them are getting smarter about who their target market is and use media to attract them to the product. There are very few that will use multi-level marketing campaigns.
Online newspapers or articles simply don’t have the depth of story. It has been written here in the past that online news gives broad facts. We certainly can’t be thinking that the newspaper as it is now will be the same in 2-5 years time.
Will people pay $2 a day for a Mon-Fri paper?
Will people be happy with a Saturday paper that is up around the $4 price point or phone book thick in adds?
These are conerns that I have with papers. They sit at the front of the shop on a 2500mm x 1500mm stand. (As per QN standards) On my pnl’s papers at this stage are ok but that is a skinny ok.
Jarryd,
Someone has to pay somewhere along the line. If Mark charged for access for the content he places here would you pay for it? It has no ads!
Good to hear you’ve taken charge of your greeting cards.
Michael,
Marks blog is not a revenue stream so it doesn’t require ads. But blogs are a different medium to professionaly published news.
If Mark charged for access to the content I would not have payed for it when I first came accross the site.
I’m confident advertisers will pay the way for online content. But in the interim where the transition occurs it is going to be hard times for publishers. The smart ones will focus on long term revenue and readership.
Jarryd,
Mark’s blog has good content even if not professionaly published, would you pay a fee for it now that you’ve been reading it this long?
Interesting times we have at the moment, people that buy the paper, people that read it online, people that can get it on a kindle/iphone. (I used to be impressed with Acorn computers!)
There is a tremendous debate going on online about the cost of news. Professional journalism has a cost and at some point there will is payment to fund this – in the form of subscription, advertising or some other model.
I don’t know how it will evolve. What I do know is that all of the news and information I sell access to today is available free online.
This is why we need to reinvent our model.
Michael,
No. Aside from the fact I wouldn’t be reading it in the first place to know the quality of the content if I had to pay – having it free gives it a larger readership. Part of the appeal of blogs is the discussion they stimulate. Without the readership that a free platform entails, the blog would lack a forum aspect.
But a blog is usually topic specific, unlike news websites that are incredibly diverse in their content. I might pay a subscription fee for a special interest site IF that content was not available elsewhere for free. As long as some publishers keep their content free, others are going to have a very difficult time charging for it.
The Irish Times Newspaper used to charge to access their online site (ireland.com). They struggled immensely to get people to subscribe particularly when competitors had free online news and now Irishtimes.com is free and ireland.com is now more than just a news site and is also now FREE.
I generally shy away from subscribing to sites to see content. The ads don’t bother me…I just ignore them.
most, if not all, information on the internet that can be accessed only by a subscription can usually also be found somewhere else, for free.
i don’t see why people should pay for online news.
Why waste good money on bad writing? The quality of Fairfax journalism is disgraceful, I’d pay for The Australian or The Observer – but there are times when the best writing in The Age appears in the Death Notices. Fairfax articles, in general, are short on humour, insight and analysis but saturated with political correctness and a nauseating Yuppie solipsism, about as substantial as froth on a latte. Last year the Sydney Morning Herald referred to The Mater Hospital – and actually called it The Martyr Hospital. You don’t waste money on crap.