Journalism Online: Trio Of Media Veterans Aim To Introduce Fees To Online News

SAN FRANCISCO — Three media veterans plan to bundle the Internet content of newspaper and magazine publishers into a subscription package that will test Web surfers' willingness to pay for material that has been given away for years.

The system won't be ready until the fall, but the plans were announced late Tuesday because so many publishers already are clamoring to sign up, said Steven Brill, co-chief executive of the new venture, called Journalism Online.

"The interest in this came together a lot more quickly than we anticipated," said Brill, the founder of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine. "We are dancing as fast as we can now."

Brill declined to identify the publishers willing to participate because agreements haven't yet been signed.

Journalism Online's other principals are former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz and former cable television executive Leo Hindery.

The decision to place more toll booths in front of online news reflects the deepening financial problems threatening the survival of print publishers, particularly newspapers.

Since 2005, the annual volume of print advertising in U.S. newspapers has plunged by $12.7 billion, or 27 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Over the same time, the amount of online advertising on newspaper Web sites has risen by $1.1 billion, a 53 percent increase, not nearly enough to offset the erosion in print.

With their profits shriveling, newspapers have been laying off workers and cutting other costs. In the most severe cases, five newspaper publishers have filed for bankruptcy protection since late last year, while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has gone online only and the Rocky Mountain News has closed.

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Many newspaper publishers now believe they can stop the hemorrhaging by charging for at least some of the material on their Web sites instead of giving it away. Besides raising more revenue online, Internet subscriptions could be included in the cost of a print subscription, as a way to persuade more readers to keep paying for print editions.

"That's a very important piece of this," Brill said. "If you are trying to sell your product with one hand and give it away with the other, then you are undermining the integrity of your product."

The risk of asking readers to pay for online news is that many publishers might find it shrinks their audience, especially if other news sites remain free. And that could leave the publishers that charge Internet fees with even less ad revenue, exacerbating their headaches.

Few newspapers now charge for access to their Web sites. The Wall Street Journal is the largest one to do so, with nearly 1.1 million subscribers.

By putting content behind a "pay wall," publishers also could keep search engines from indexing the stories and then delivering links to them in search results. Journalism Online hopes to negotiate licensing agreements with Google and other services so the search engines could show links to stories that only paying subscribers can read.

Journalism Online's business model will share some elements with the cable and satellite TV packages that have become staples in millions of households.

The company plans to offer an "all-you-can-read" option that would give customers access to the content of all the participating publishers for a monthly fee, expected to range from $15 to $20, Brill said. The publishers will divvy up the revenue, based on which articles draw the most readership each month.

Readers also will able to buy a pass for one-day access to the content kept behind the so-called pay wall.

Beyond asking more readers to pay for online news, the newspaper industry also appears poised to try harder to stop the spread of its material to free sites beyond its control. Last week The Associated Press, a not-for-profit cooperative, announced it would get more aggressive in blocking the unlicensed use of the industry's copyright material.

Journalism Online appears ready to handle antitrust, copyright or other legal concerns triggered by its plans. The company's board of advisers includes prominent antitrust lawyer David Boies and Theodore Olson, former U.S. solicitor general.

Comments

[Flavor]

You know what, I know everybody want to make a dollor but these men will stop at nothing. Squeeze, whatever else we can out of the people, pretty soon will be using pigeons to deliver news news, Oh wait flavor there going to charge us for the air that the pigeons use.

[CtDude]

This whole battle was long-expected, and was addressed early-on in one way by the radio business. If you ever listen to streaming radio, notice that some commercials that air in their home markets are covered with public service announcements on a station's Internet stream. Why? Because the union voice-over talent and musicians who created those spots (usually for national advertisers) have *never* come-up with an agreement to have their work sent out over the Internet. They created that spot specifically for, say, New York State, *not* the entire world. Broadcasters agreed, and now block those commercials from airing beyond the union-agreed area. The print world is finally waking-up to this issue.

[CtDude]

It looks like we're in for the same type of battle that sprouted-up when Napster came on the scene. Suddenly, no one wanted to pay for music anymore, and all sorts of people said music should be "free." Well, you can't put a price on raw combinations of notes and lyrics, but you sure can put a price on the talent and labor it takes to create, sing, record and market a consumer version of that. Whether people like to admit it or not, the same holds true for news, and it parallels music. "News" in and of itself is *not* a product -- hence the legal term, "natural news event" that was drilled into me when I was in journalism school. But, the reporting of news *is* a product. There is *no* right to get a free report of what happened. Someone, somewhere covered the story you're reading about, and deserves to get paid for it. Reporters, drivers, photographers, videographers, soundpersons, editors, graphic artists, press operators, etc. It all adds up.

[SharpDressedMan]

CtDude said "Well, you can't put a price on raw combinations of notes and lyrics,"

Yes you can. It's done all the time. That's how poets, lyricists, song writers and composers are paid.

Normal procedure involves creating, publishing, securing copyrights then letting the market dictate the economics, prices, incomes, etc. Fireworks begin when the market place ignores copyrights, as in Napster.

[LittleSanityLeft]

Online advertising is the key simply because the ads are unavoidable. You want to attempts to charge me for content? I don't think so. I'll get my news from somewhere else. A host of news and magazine publishers going to a pay to view model will just leave a online media vacuum that will allow competitors and start ups to fill the void. In other words it's a dumb idea.

Work the online advertising model. Anything else and you bozo's start looking like dogs with a bone staring at your own reflections.

[CtDude]

Hi there. A note to FrTown: Regarding TV news -- There's no need to install a coin machine at your home -- you're already "paying" for TV news, whether you realize it or not. If you're on cable or satellite, your provider pays a specific "per-house­hold-per-m­onth" fee to the parent companies of *all* the channels that you get. It's usually far less than a dollar per-househ­old-per-mo­nth for each channel, but do the math, and it adds up big time. That's where most of your cable bill goes. If you're still using an antenna, you're still paying. How? Every single retail item you buy as a consumer -- from a new car to pack of gum -- has a certain amount of advertising cost built in that the manufacturer pays for network and cable TV spots. It's generally just a few cents on everyday household items, but again, it adds up!

[listentome]

These geniuses just don't get it. I don't know about most newspapers across the country, but I do know that the Atlanta Journal Constitution is only worth buying on Sunday. That is the problem.

[listentome]

Go ahead and then we can all watch you go bankrupt.

[texastrixie]

Here's why this will not work: Most of us who still read newspapers, also want the ads. While I am wiling to read news and commentary online, trying to find who has the best sale on shoes is a total waste. I have to go to the website of every shoe store I ever shop, and that takes a lot of time. In the newspaper, all the stores had ad inserts, or had printed sales in the front page section or the "life&stye" section.

As for news, as much as I would like to pay for everything I want to read, its not possible. I have even given up the local paper and gone back to watching local news (which is basically worthless). Who can afford $40 or $50 a month to read stuff online? Not regular people trying to feed a family, or those retired, or those on a fixed income. We take the Sunday paper and that's it. Personally, I long for a day when the mail comes only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and the paper comes only on Wednesday and Sunday. Yes lots of people would lose their jobs, but then, most of those in the newspaper field are losing them anyway.

I take Time AND Newsweek, but I cannot afford to waste 50 cents a day on a newspaper that is barely a quarter inch thick on most days.

[mdennis188]

Won't happen and here's why: not every other news website will follow this "pay-to-read" business model.

Like the piece says, the risk is "if other news sites remain free." And they will. Not only that, but the blog genie is out of the bottle and there will always be reliable, unedited and eyewitness accounts published for free on weblogs. It may come down to the mindset of "who needs the main stream media anyway?" Let the people do the reporting.

Google and similar search sites will also run the risk of frustrating non-subscribers by making searchers pay to view some of their linked content -- opening up the search market to fledgling search sites who refuse to fleece their visitors via a "pay wall" link.

Too much to lose here -- for the publishers and everyone involved. Definitely wouldn't buy stock in it.

[Mintcondition]

Any means necessary to fleece the public a little more.

[FrTown]

Yeah, and who would pay for a news source that was in bed for 8 years with the 8ush ad.min and was complicit in beating the drums of vvar against |raq

[Lvm]

Agree. I think that's part of the failure of newspapers as a whole. There is no real investigative reporting anymore. They were just shills for an illegal war.

[SharpDressedMan]

Don't blame just the newspapers. TV networks and news magazines have reporters in the White House Corps. Helen Thomas and David Gregory were part of the very few who challenged the Bush press secretaries and they could have done more. The Bush administration worked hard at keeping the media at a distance till the capitulated and cooperated. By the time the public realized what happened, it was too late.

[FrTown]

Yeah, and who would pay for a news source that was in bed for 8 years with the 8ush admin and was complicit in beating the drums of vvar against |raq

[FrTown]

So,... Are they planning on going from house to house to install coin operated machines next to our TV sets so we can slide in a quarter or 50 cents every time we want to watch the news?
Because that's basically what they're trying to do with the online news.
As for loss of revenue from sale of newspaper, bear in mind the 25, 35 or 50 cents we pay for those newspapers barely covers the cost of PAPER. Online there is no PAPER (yes I'm yelling)

[SharpDressedMan]

Professional journalism must be preserved. Citizen bloggers aren't enough.

[FrTown]

Agree, and so far BBC and other world news sources have no intention to charge us for anything.

[mediamarv]

Don't forget that Brill is the person who started an in-school tv channel for cash strapped school systems forcing grade schoolers to sit thru commercials. This was done in San Jose, CA for several years, tho I think that by now it is defunct.
Anyway, his attitudes about profiting reflect the causes of so many newspaper failures: they are corporately owned and only exist to make profits for investors. Public's need to know or jounalistic integrity be damned.

I would avoid anything Brill is associated with.