The front page of today’s Australian Financial Review newspaper is a reminder of the importance Fairfax places on digital as a distribution channel for their content. The sticker offering 50% off a six months digital sub is stuck over news on the print edition. While I am not privy to the financials, I expect the daily print edition of the AFR to be replaced by a digital only product soon. Digital distribution of AFR type content makes sense in this faster and more connected world. Newsagents need to factor this into their business planning.
The challenge for Fairfax is that the news in the AFR and the charts are accessible elsewhere. It’s point of difference is analysis and the question is whether that is worth $1 a day.
I have not sold the FR since they gave me one days notice on stopping my account .In that 2 months I have had only one person ask for it and it just so happened to be the local polly guy and I said to him sorry I cannot get it due to big companys treating us like crap ..
Funny thing; the glue didn’t seem to work very well on the supply I received. The stickers fell off before I could do the home deliveries.
Oh well, I guess it at least stopped me from feeling like a right goose and indirectly suggesting to my home delivery account holders that they close their account with me and take up a digital edition.
Now if I could just get that bloody sticker off my finger….damn glue seemed to get a second life once it came into contact with skin…. 🙂
Dennis I hope the glue presented the same opportunity to others.