News Corp. is promoting a 28 day digital subscription to The Australian through PayPal in an email campaign that hit this morning. At the end of $28 days the subscription flips to $6 a week – a big jump.
What’s interesting about this campaign is that it has been promoted by PayPal via email as a last minute Christmas gift. $1 is not much of a gift. I’d be interested in the drop-off at the end of 28 days.
That there is no paper component of the offer is interesting too.
Mark, I received the Paypal email as well.
The $1 deal, is of course, no surprise to any of us. Being essentially a giveaway is the only reason, to date, that digital subscriptions for newspapers work. If this delivery process had to stand on its own feet, instead of being financially supported by print the result would be laughable.
But of course, publishers have to be in that digital space, I would too in their position, no question about it.
BUT, what I wouldn’t do if in charge, is to allow News Corp digital executives a free ride by having them cannibalise the very thing that is probably paying their salaries, print media.
Why would I say that?, well if you follow the Paypal link through to the end, you will find in the Australian Subscription page a list of Q & A’s. This list reveals what my main issue is. It is not the offer, but the terms and conditions News Corp digital executives have imposed on subscribers.
This is one of the Q&A’s ——
“What if I already have a newspaper subscription?”
“If you currently get this publication delivered and wish to purchase one of our print + digital bundles then you will first need to cancel your existing newspaper subscription.
Alternatively, please consider one of our digital only offers or contact customer service on” …….
So to take up this virtually free offer (in combo with print or not), existing subscribers are being asked to CANCEL their existing subscription and to (here’s where the boot gets sunk into the gut’s of SA Distribution Newsagents who migrated their customers) “please consider” a digital only offer.
So is this the best that digital promoting executives can do, just feed off print to the demise of Distribution Newsagents and no doubt frustrated News Corp Print colleagues??
Really! So notwithstanding the so-called uniqueness of digital compared to Print, some are so bereft of an original idea that they need to destroy the print subscription in a pathetic attempt to get at least some paying customers.
I certainly hope that News Corp staff and executives who depend upon print for their hard earned dollars are loudly standing up to this bottom-feeding activity and making themselves heard.
There’s a lot more to this story and as you have pointed out Mark, what happens when the give-away offer expires.
Look out lemming, here comes that bloody cliff. Oh sheeeeeeet.
Oh Noooooo, and look we can’t turn back to the face cos we cut the nose off to spite it.
Whilst I’ve no doubt some colleagues will say it’s just an Australian (as distinct from the mainstream earner) and it’s just one promo to Paypal, I would say it’s the thin edge of the wedge that will move to the main sales product and it’s much more difficult to get back a cancelled print subscription than to retain an existing one.
I’ve no doubt some colleagues will also say no, he’s wrong, the cancellation is only there because it’s the only way the ‘system’ can work. I would say amend the system so that cancellation is not required. The American software suppliers have been clear in that they will do changes that are requested.
So to repeat and to be clear, my issue is with the Q&A that reveals News Corp digital exec’s have over-stepped the mark.
It could be one of those print customers that I obtained when I held accounts prior to Migration. The trust ingrained into that process by Newsagents is not being reciprocated by News Corp.
Am I angry about this, you betcha.
Dennis this promotion continues the type of ignorant promotion we have seen from publishers for a while. They continue to tell newsagents that it is business as usual with print while their actions tell a different story. http://www.newsagencyblog.com.au/2014/10/28/news-corp-promoting-the-reimagined-newspaper/
Newspapers, who cares really? News corp would stop the presses tomorrow if they could make digital pay, with no regard to us or their employees that would get the chop as well.
In 1994 (I think that is the right date) Rupert closed “The News” in Adelaide (his father’s flagship) with absolutely no warning. It just shut its doors and newsagents were left bereft. A lot of the News Ltd staff went to the Advertiser (the morning paper which Rupert purchased).
There will be no warning folks – it will happen overnight and you will be bereft of
income and no-one will care.
Distribution only people are at a huge risk.
Those of us who have had distribution and are now retail only will hopefully survive but I for one, am very happy that I no longer have a distribution round.
Having said that I feel for the round only agents who cannot sell because of the circumstances which they did not create.
It’s a bit like being a blacksmith when cars
started to become the new form of transport.
Things change and we have to change too but the ruthlessness of the paper companies should not be underestimated.
We are not valued by them and we never have been.
Am I whingeing again??????? No I’m just calling it like it is.
I’d actually enjoy saying good bye to the part time delivery drivers who seem to work when it suits them! and get my husband back to the same time zone that I operate in and enjoy New Years Eve like the rest of the planet does …. just dreaming 🙂
June, the fault goes back to deregulation in the 1990s and when newsagents were poorly represented. Back then, when structural change seas being brought about, the financial side should have been addressed. But it was not – in part because of the appalling representation of newsagents in the negotiations.
Newsagents were let down not only by those representing them but also by the Howard government which ushered in the deregulation. Their failure to serve our small business channel is having ramifications for many today.
Mark,
As indicated above I actually don’t have a problem with News Corp being in the digital space. I am pro-technology and a decent pie slice of my share portfolio captures revolutionary tech companies. For the past decade and a half, I have personally always obtained news from a digital source. And yes I would be eternally pleasantly surprised if print newspapers outlasted the end of the baby boomers.
Yes as you quite rightly pointed out in your link, News Corp continues to exclude print from a range of marketing campaigns and I agree with your assessment that some in News Corp — “continue to tell newsagents that it is business as usual with print while their actions tell a different story”. — I agree with you because the evidence trail says so.
What’s different about this particular promotion is that it is the first time I have seen any evidence of a deliberate attempt to have people cancel existing subscriptions and to consider a digital offer only.
Initially, that’s a confusing signal to be sending out to Newsagents and other News Corp staff, especially so given that digital subs can’t stand on it’s own feet. Hell of a risk to take to actively seek cancellations of print subs while everyone waits to see the outcome of digital when subscribers eventually have to pay the true cost and Advertisers ponder the latest news that on-liners spend only 3 minutes reading time on-line.
So when I hear about another Newsagent (great bloke, young fella) having about 400 cancellations in 12 and a bit months, I start to get angry and wonder how many of that number now have digital only subscriptions as a consequence of similar marketing campaigns.
This anger comes in with respect to the trust that was given to News Corp when I and others migrated customers on Newsagents books to all go to News Corp Subscriptions.
I think the problem lies in News Corp Sydney where the newbies just don’t get it. They don’t get it that Newsagents in SA have large HD rounds and are unique in their support of that sector for News Corp, whereas in their own locales, the throw rounds are much smaller and migration hasn’t taken place as I understand it.
Perhaps it’s out-dated to actually believe that when you shake hands with a bloke (even metaphorically speaking) and you hand something of value over (as in migration) on the understanding it will be taken care of that people honour that.
That’s what’s getting my goat at the moment.
I don’t actually have the mentality of the blacksmith and all that implies (denial etc) I have a number of exit plans depending on the longevity of print.
Interesting to note that the candlestick manufacturing industry is currently worth $2Billion in the good old USofA alone.
Jenny, sorry to hear about you’re unreliable part-timers. I must have got lucky, 2 of my employees are indigenous fella’s – 1 for 4 years now and 1 since April this year. Neither have taken any unplanned leave and are incredibly reliable.
Dennis I agree with what you have written and share your feelings. Part of the problem is that publishers have said to newsagents for years that its business as usual and association staff and directors have believed them.
There is no upside in print and that’s been obvious for at least ten years now.
Dennis, I was not assuming that anyone had a “blacksmith mentality” – rather I was using the analogy as a similar time in
history – horse to car and print to digital.
I know how hard you work at your business – believe me I know because I also was a distribution agent for many many years.
We know that distribution is doomed but the companies keep giving us “spin”.
print will disappear sooner rather than later, i dropped our distribution in july, what annoys me about news corp is that they expect me to respect their product, when they clearly dont, and want prime retail space but wont pay for that prime space (ie decent commision). i would not care if newspapers dis appeared tomorrow.
Mark,
Yes, correct, it is a long time ago that the idea of print gradually trailing off was formed. I am happy to engage in further conversation about that and perhaps why it doesn’t have to be all negative or all doom and gloom in a later post (glass is always half full in my book), but for now —
I just want to get the message across that the digital power-brokers in News Corp should immediately cease from the practice of asking customers to cancel existing subscriptions at the same time as asking them to only consider digital offerings.
I used some powerful words a few posts back to describe such practices, and I am again asking those people to stop using such techniques to gain digital memberships.
I actually think the people concerned don’t understand the implications of what they doing and the dishonour being brought to the spirit of the Migration programme and risk to any subsequent expansion of that programme, not to mention the relationship with Distribution Newsagents.
So I always understood that Migration was about control, but never thought this sort of practice would be introduced. Who would.
What Newsagent in his right mind would now willingly hand-over customer data with some Depts in News Corp openly encouraging same customer to cancel the print edition and only consider digital.
News Corp print people do understand the implications of such practices though and I was told this morning that at a recent meeting (I didn’t attend) Newsagents were informed that News Corp Marketers were going to be told to include print in their marketing campaigns. Maybe they have, but this latest promotion through Paypal suggests otherwise.
To be balanced, News Corp is a large organisation and it takes a while for changes to take place, so perhaps those efforts are still in the pipeline.
So if the practice ceases, then I would happily put it down as over exuberance by a new team keen to see gains on the board and not having a proper understanding of what is at stake.
But if the practice continues, then it would really tell us that the relationship between Newsagents and News Corp is being trashed.