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Guardian:
The Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, has predicted that "almost all" news organisations will be charging for online content within a year.
Barber said building online platforms that could charge readers on an article-by-article or subscription basis was one of the key challenges facing news organisations.
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good luck with that
I'm all for it if it delivers more actual reporting. I stopped buying the local paper years ago - before the proliferation of the internet - because the majority of what was in there was from the wire services. If papers have really good journalists doing a good job on investigative journalism, I'll buy.
There are several online sites I used to check everyday that I now check out maybe once a week. I'm tired of opinions (I read very few of them on HuffPo) and there aren't enough hours in the day to read all this stuff. Short of subscribing to Stratfor, I want a product that gives me news, context and analysis. And I'm willing to pay for it.
The US needs to get used to micro payments.
You just go ahead a pay all you want - but if you think it will result in better reporting, then I have a couple of Roads to Nowhere to sell you.
RaderB- I agree. I will never pay for any of this tripe. If it was Cronkite reporting then I'd have jumped on that in a n.y. minute.
Sounds like a great idea. Publish slanted myopic one-sided drivel, and charge money to those dumb enough to read it.
Huffpo has a far better business model.
If I have to pay online, I would rather buy the newspaper itself.
As soon as I click on a link to a newsite and an advertisement comes up, or a page comes up telling me that I have to register (even if it is free), I immediately click back and move on. There is simply no way - absolutely no way on the goddess's green earth that even a small minority of people will pay to read news on the Internet. I can only hope that The Financial Times actually tries this - and soon. Then they will discover what anyone who uses the Internet as their news sources already understands. (Oh yeah, and be sure to opt out of Google Search when you try your little pay experiment, Financial Times.)
Relying on newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal leaves one with an extremely myopic view of the world. They do not cover enough news, and on many issues have a "point of view" which is another way of saying "bias".
Most newspapers are doing exactly what google news does, only on paper -- they are recycling material other persons wrote, such as Associated Press.
The fundamental obsolescence of the newspaper model is that it attempts to be all things to all persons. Spots, Entertainment, Financial news, local politics, cartoons ... the list is endless. But in trying to do everything, they do nothing very well.
Cable TV forces one to purchase dozens of channels you don't want to watch; newspapers force you to purchase pages and pages of materials you have no interest in. Both are doomed models.
The newspapers form the core of the Associated Press. AP stories are shared content by the newspapers.
Google, on the other hand, doesn't produce content. It just points to it.
For all the flaws of the print media, the fact is they are the ones going to Burma, Iraq, Iran, Europe, North Korea, Honduras, etc. Bloggers and other "new media" are derivative because, with a few notable exceptions, they pontificate on what is being generated by the "old media".
At some point, you need organizations willing to put feet on the ground in hot spots around the world and in local communities. Bloggers reposting content from some anonymous source isn't going to cut it. Blogging as news is only really sustainable because there is original material that they can feed off of.
Well then, tell me, how are all those mainstream "feet on the ground" working out for you as far as recent coverage of Iran is concerned? Or have you made an exception in this case? Even the mainstream news organizations are going to the bloggers to get their news these days. Therein lies the future.
If "almost all" news organizations start charging for online content within a year we know for sure that their price collusion going on! The justice department will have to decide if they press charge under anti-trust law!
No. It means that they've woken to the reality that you can't run a business indefinitely at a loss.
Like GM and Chrysler did for years! While they sat back and enjoyed fringe benefits and strong unions, these companies shld have had a global market "monitor" that was responsible for global market assessments performed atleast every 6 months.
News organizations may either win or lose online whenever they start charging.
Yep, you sure cannot run a business indefinitely at a loss - and so trying to get people to pay online is what is commonly known as a last-minute "Hail Mary" pass - thrown just before the game is up. Such a "pass" has about as much chance of saving a newspaper and it does of winning a football game.
This is destined to fail. Most people will not pay and there are too many players on the net who will provide enough free content to keep people away from the see-4-fee sites.
Exactly!
What will happen to MSM & other media if web users decline to pay a fee to use their web sites? This could mean that more traditional MSM will fold because their content fails to attract web users to their websites who will pay to use their web sites. These web sites may repel web users even if the rescind their fees for using their web site(s). If nobody or not enough web users will use a free site-it will be difficult for the site(s) to sell ads to defray the cost of publishing & posting these sites on the www. Whither the news media in a rapidly, constantly changing news business?
And those who will remain free will reap the reward of more traffic and increase in ad revenue.
I think that is how capitalism works. Thanks for being concise in your reply in your reply to my rhetorical questions.
This is really a lamebrain idea and will cause their certain demise. A much better idea is just to charge more for advertising.
And who will pay for that advertising pray tell. THAT'S THE PROBLEM AT NEWSPAPERS-SHRINKING AD REVENUE BECAUSE THE $ IS GOING ELSEWHERE
Yes I'm shouting...
It would work under several conditions:
1. the content is unique, well reported, and well written.
2. The content appeals to the base interests and instincts of specific groups of people. For instance, FOX can charge for people to read even more openly racist content.
We all know that number 1 won't happen.
Number 2 is the more probable.
Ha. yes, it's going to be hard to get people to pay after years of being accustomed to getting news for free. Or else television news will be more popular, as everyone has a tv for which they pay a flat cable fee.
But I suppose the entire kl an will gladly subscribe to get more specially tailored content from Fox!
They can sign up at FOX for their outright racist news reports given by blond strippers over webcasts.
Oh how they wish this were true! Of course it is not - and is merely wishful thinking passing as expertise. How many websites are there these days? And some clowns think we will PAY to read their dribble when we have so many choices? No matter the age - I am in my 60s - nobody is going to pay for news ever again. Financial Times, I suspect, is another one that will soon be history - anyone crying over that? I didn't think so.
Wrong. This is the internet, young people will not pay! Better stick to ad sales.
I won't pay for it. Most of it is garbage and lies anyways. Now if one of these news organizations manages to consistently provide unbiased honest reporting like PBS and CSPAN I might consider it.
NYtimes seems to be about the best but there are still all kinds of bias and falsehoods that creep into some of their reporting.
I agree. That's how it was supposed to be 10 years ago, but apparently, it was too difficult to come up with a working model.
Guess we'll find another way to get our news.
What rose coloured glasses are you wearing? This two tier system will simply not succeed as once free, always free will prevail. Tell the demographic from 18-35 that they will have to pay for content and they will just laugh in your face and for those ofver 35-50? well you simply won't survive with that business model. Good try though.
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Posted: 07-16-09 08:43 AM