Arianna Huffington, Mathias Dopfner Clash Over Paid Content At Monaco Media Forum (VIDEO)

Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington clashed with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Dopfner Thursday at the Monaco Media Forum.

Huffington and Dopfner — whose company owns Bild, the biggest newspaper in Europe — disagreed with one another over the future of the media business model. Dopfner argued in favor of paid content online, while Huffington maintained that consumer habits have changed and free, advertiser-supported content is the way of the future.

The video of their discussion appears below. Read more about it at BusinessWeek.com or follow the conversation on Twitter below.

Watch:

Comments

[Lorianne]

We all need to brush up on our samizdat skills.

[Social Construct]

One good thing would come from paid content would be a return of popularity for public libraries. Not much else, though.

[max hp]

Keep the internet free - as in free of interference from those who want to control or meter it - like the A.T.T's, the Com.casts, and all entities who want to be gatekeepers and toll keepers, etc.

Freedom of CHOICE - keep it FREE.

[wilray]

(continued from below) Dopfner's model is not sustainable for online. Charging for subscribers reduces your advertising base. Besides subscribers should not be charged to see advertising. So basically you're trading one source of revenue for another. But let's say your subscribers don't balk at having advertising thrown in their face, you will still have far fewer subscribers than you would if access were free. So your advertising revenue will drop.

Combine that with the fact that your exclusive content will not remain exclusive for long. Since Dopfner wants to use a print model on an online world, he should consider this. When I buy a newspaper, once I finish reading it I can hand it off to whomever I like, other people in the office, someone on the bus. Whomever. When I see something online I feel, I should be able to do the same. I see an article, I want to share, I am not going to ask my friend to subscribe. I am going to make a copy and send to him. Dopfner can't stop it, because there are enough of us who are sophisticated enough to get around any blocks. With Arianna's model this isn't even an issue. She wants you to share, it increases revenue.

[jebuff]

Unfortunately, it has become clear that the advertising revenue model will not sustain serious journalism­... overseas bureaus and teams of experienced reporters with perspective. Find fault with the quality of such professional journalism all you want, and I'll agree oftentimes, but I'm not ready to to bet the entire news gathering profession and by extension the quality of our democracy on Joe Schmoe's blog or on his the spot, I just happened to be there, cell phone videos.
Aggregators are happy pirates, but pirates they are, at least until their sources of content dry up. Then the news-hungry public be back, humbled, looking for sources we can trust. Hopefully there will still be a few around.

[wilray]

In the U.S. most of us are used to a free news model long before their was an internet. It was called broadcast journalism. It even predates cable television. Basically, you could turn on your television or radio and access the news. The internet future that Arianna envisions is more like broadcast communication rather than subscriber only service. I believe Arianna's model will win because Dopfner's model will have to compete against it. I stopped buying newspapers a longtime ago. Especially the dreaded Sunday newspaper. The news to advertising ratio did not justify me paying for it. Also it's just stacks and stacks of clutter. 75 cents for a daily and 3 dollars for a Sunday paper. No Thanks. All the that they charge for classifieds and regular advertising, I figure they should pay me for reading. Besides, I get the exact same thing for free with their online editions. I haven't figured out how to make them pay me yet. They make their money from banner ads and from added service. People get to have their classifieds in print and online. They get expanded viewer ship. We also have several free weeklies with online outlets. These papers seem to thrive. (continued)

[tapiocasunshine]

Free? Ariana has learned to use nude women to lure readers. Shameful!

[Michael Solano]

I love Arianna Huffington. Dopher and Rupert Murdock will fail. Charging people for content is ridiculous since most of the content on the web is full of opinion and not really hard news anyway. Why don't the big media outlets try to get partially subsidized by telecommunication companies since consumers already pay exorbitant fees just to get access to the internet. Charging people for news and general information will limit access to those who may not be able to afford monthly subscription charges therefore only making news accessible to the privileged. Start charging people for exclusive content and you'll find thousands of other providers on the web ready to offer their content for free.

[Lorianne]

Bingo!
Arianna gets it, those other two don't.

[bernie12]

people should be compensated for their work if millions in advertising is being pocketed by a payroll of less than 100.

[ruhaba]

Misleading headline?

[Diogenis]

Hyperbolic­....for sure.

[GayIthacan]

Considering the number of misspellings, grammatical errors, and links that fail to work properly, perhaps Arianna should be spending a bit more here at HuffPost on well-educated employees.

[JuergenHartl]

Calling "Bild" a newspaper is just like calling "Fox News" a news-channel. Laughable

[Kid from Rio]

In my opinion there are two big differences between print and online information content.
The question relates to the age old question of brick vs click. Each format has its own characteristics and distinctions. Printed content (brick) allows me to have information in a scenario I would not normally have it such as on the train or at the coffee shop. I also end up with a physical object (the paper) which allows me to justify in my mind paying for it.
However online I have access to hundreds of different sources of information with no barriers with the majority being cost free. And since as soon as I have read the information the service has been consumed why would I pay for such a service if it doesn’t offer me any exclusive information.
You could even look at it as the difference between a product and a service.

[littlepuffycloud]

Would charging improve the grammar or cut down on the misleading headlines any?

[Citizen54]

If that money went to editors and proofreaders it would.
But even print mags are getting rid of those folks. And most web sites never hand them. Or if they did, as soon as they fail to meet quarterly financial goals, it's the copy editors and proofers who get the axe. Editors are seen as a useless expense.

Besides, like most publications, you can push the work onto overworked, unpaid college interns.

To think that ad revenue is going to fund good, investigative journalism online is very optimistic.

[splathrop]

Ad supported content will happen, but not ad supported journalism.

Online, algorithms link ads to thematically related content. The Google model.

A key difference is that a newspaper sells advertisers an audience, not stories. The newspaper rounds up and enlarges the audience by presenting a broad selection of information. Online sites sell advertisers stories--stories specifically of interest to advertisers' customers.

To work financially the newspaper model strives to expand information and audience. To work financially the online model targets each story to an exploitable theme. The range of information presented online can be arbitrarily narrow. What matters online is the strength of the commercial link exploited by each story.

For the moment, relatively little of what gets discussed at Huffington Post starts online. That's because we still have newspapers. The editorial policies of newspapers, evolved to serve their now-besieged business model, continue to shape national dialogue. It's little more than a habit. Online, it will prove a financial liability--a habit to be unlearned.

Try to imagine what the news will look like after newspapers--when the outcomes of online competition fluctuate mostly according to who does the best job of producing stories which can be linked to the hottest search topics.

[spiderbucket]

Go ahead and start chraging me for content and watch how much I buy.