A couple of years ago it seems just about every newspaper threw in the towel and lowered the firewall to content. The supposition was simple: Traffic would grow much faster that way --- along would come revenue from display advertising --- than if the firewall remained and the subscription revenue crept along.

The risk of harming the newspaper franchise was calculated at the time and the decision was that it was better to move forward and grow audience than limp forward with a smaller one. Besides, everyone noted, others were offering content free, so it was necessary to jump in.

Of course, much has changed in the newspaper business since then, particularly the economic model of advertising-supported news companies. Lately there have been some calls to look again at the all-is-free model and try to charge. There are some clear technical hurdles (firewalls are relatively easy to scale) and some major cultural ones, but in this essay for Online Journalism Review, Gerry Storch of Outlook.com lays out the case.

He argues that it's necessary to discard the print model and create niche powerhouses online. It's an interesting read.

 


Comments

Joseph Thornley link
01/29/2009 12:43

Kirk, I think that the "charge for content" horse has long left the barn.

I have far too many news feeds of free quality content now. More than I can read in a single day.

I cannot imagine paying for content online until I was sure that I could not get access to what I want through those free feeds.

The day of having to pay for content because there were only one or two papers in your community - and you'd have to pay or miss the news - are over.

Sorry.

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DoreenatDMS link
01/29/2009 13:56

Discussions about paying for online news content have never been as popular as they have been lately, over the last couple of months in particular (along with the hybrid-foundation/public funding model that's also being circulated.)

I suspect most publishers were not having these kinds of discussions even a year ago; maybe they should have.

Yes, (print) publishing has been around for well over 500 years and, in comparison, the online *platform* and online news is barely 'a glint in somebody's eye.' But clearly the current economic climate is fast-tracking everything. And unfortunately, many publishers just cannot afford to navel gaze or sit back and wait for a solution that *seems* right.

Either way, I believe, as Gerry Storch alludes, not only does journalism need to reinvent itself (journalists too, for that matter), but Publishers need to reinvent themselves, and make efforts to truly understand the dynamics of the online media world and all its reader and content-focused dynamics.

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Peter Darbyshire link
01/29/2009 14:07

Joseph is right. Charging for content won't work as long as there is other free quality content online — and there will always be free quality content online, whether it's newsrooms producing it or other organizations/individuals.

Also, the idea of firewall-protected content is suicidal as we head into an age of increasing social networking online. If you can't link it for your followers/friends to read on Twitter or FriendFeed or Facebook or whatever's next, it's dead information.

The problem for newsrooms is their economic structure is based on a physical newspaper and its marketplace but the newsworld is now mainly digital in nature and determined — or at least informed — by social marketplaces. Newspapers need to recognize this and move ahead, not backward.

I'm not sure what the answer is — crowdsourcing options for papers, community freelance reporters, online-only newsrooms with low overhead, reporters who are paid according to the traffic they generate — but it's certainly not this.

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Kirk LaPointe link
01/29/2009 14:56

A good thread of discussions so far.
One question I have: Would an offline news entity work any longer?

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Truthy
01/29/2009 20:08

Yes, an offline news entity could work, but the problem isn't that the online version is free. The problem is the offline version isn't.

If faced with the option of a tabloid sized free rag with a lot of the same wire copy as the broadsheet that I'd have to scrounge a dollar or so in change to get my hands on, I'd usually opt for the freebie.

The 1c pricepoint is odious in a time when people don't carry change. Go free. First paper to make the change wins the market.

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DoreenatDMS link
01/29/2009 20:42

Interesting question. I'm officially considered a baby boomer (albeit at the tail end), but there are people I know, some younger than I, who enjoy the 'physicality'/ritual of reading their morning paper.

Although I agree with a lot of Peter's points above, let's not get trapped in the "big boy's bubble" at the risk of not thinking about about the millions of Canadians who read the 100s of multicultural newspapers who succeed at (gasp!) supplying local content. So through that lens, I would answer yes to your question.

I've read that daily newspaper readership is, on average, 16% lower among newcomers to Canada than the current average, so this percentage can only get higher if traditional mainstream media continues failing at being all things....

It's these community newspapers and other cultural media that are clearly playing an increasingly larger role in the lives of newcomers to Canada.

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Kirk LaPointe link
01/30/2009 09:17

A challenge is that so much content is a commodity now. I still think people are willing to support --- through subscription fees, micropayments, support of advertisers, etc. --- something that offers unique content. What that content is, is an open question.

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Peter Darbyshire link
01/30/2009 16:04

Some relevant points in this article on the all-digital newsrooms of the not-so-distant future — note in particular beatblogging and mobile applications and content specialists for newspapers. Although I don't know how you could enact this kind of change in most union newsrooms.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/stopthepresses_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003936131

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