92 replies to this topic

[Ms. B. Havin]

I'm going out on a limb here, 'cause I don't know Nova Scotia / Halifax at all, but it seems to me that the allnovascotia.com model can't possibly scale. It's dependent on a small - relatively small - business community, which happens to have a couple of silos, and for a fee, this model provides views into them.

I could be wrong, but the model just strikes me as really provincial - as soon as you move beyond that parochial orbit (i.e., move beyond Halifax and/or what, specifically, is happening in Halifax), you're SOL (sh*t outta luck) in terms of making that pay-to-view model work. Eg.: as soon as the conversation turns to innovation on a national - or, yikes!, global - scale, you cannot contain that conversation behind a paywall in Halifax, NS because it's happening everywhere all at once, generated by the people who are the innovators and their fans/ meme-boys (and girls)/ hangers-on.

IOW, the small scale (and inability of this model to scale to something bigger) affects the quality of the conversation: parochial, limited in topic and scope.

~

On another note: Hmm's fits of pique reminded me that a lot of the pain around the current disruption has to do with journalists' egos. Many feel insulted by these upstart non-professionals, by these bloggers who have the chutzpah to call themselves citizen journalists.

Let's try to separate the journos' annoyance out from genuine questions around the business model. It muddies the waters to ask, "well, where are these guys (the bloggers) going to get their material if newspapers fold?" because when a piqued journalist asks that question, the implication is that the bloggers (1) are taking his/her job; (2) can't survive without the industry the journalist is/ was a part of; and (3) deserve to die.

The bloggers aren't going to go away because the platforms for blogging aren't going to go away. As long as there's WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, whatever, there will be bloggers. As long as any platforms exist to share media, media will be shared. As long as media are shared, stories will be told. As long as stories are told, "journalism" will exist. The "pros" may not like it, but that's the way it is.

Asking for paywalls around conversations is (imnsho) idiotic. Therefore, let's stop fighting that battle and acknowledge when we're talking about business models versus when we're talking about bruised egos because so-called non-professionals are butting into conversations that used to be controlled by people with press passes.

And on that note, here's a link to a brilliant "Ignite" presentation by Monica Guzman (Seattle PI reporter / blogger). Please watch this if the newspaper biz interests you - great clip.

[Ms. B. Havin]

From TechDirt, Yet Another Journalism Professor Gets Nearly Every Fact Wrong In Saying Google Needs To Pay (from the facts?-who-needs-them? dept):

No one is saying that because information is offered to consumers for free that it means that you don't make money or you don't pay your reporting staff. [Joel] Brinkley is setting up a bogus strawman (the sort of thing reporters shouldn't do). What they are saying is that they need to come up with better business models (which we've pointed out do exist) that leverage (rather than deny) the basic economics of content, and do so in a way that makes a more valuable product.

Brinkley, of course, never bothers to explain how to make the product any more valuable (hint: it's not by writing columns that are entirely based on incorrect statements) or why people would want to pay for such rubbish. He just insists they "deserve to be paid for it." But if Brinkley's writing is an example of the type of quality found in papers today, is it any wonder people don't find it worth paying for? (more)

[Ms. B. Havin]

Steven B. Johnson (look him up, he's very smart; famous, too) has an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the Kindle and how it's changing reading habits: How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write.

There's a fascinating nugget in there that relates to newspapers and business models (and like I said, Johnson is very smart, so click through and read the whole article):

Yet that modular pricing system [or, say, allowing readers to download individual chapters/ sections of books] will have one interesting, and laudable, side effect: The online marketplace will have established an easy, one-click mechanism for purchasing small quantities of text.

Tellingly, the Kindle already includes blog and newspaper subscriptions that can be purchased in a matter of seconds.

Skeptics may ask why anyone would pay for something that was elsewhere available at no charge, but that's precisely what they said when Steve Jobs launched the iTunes Music Store, competing with the free offerings on Napster. We've seen how that turned out. If the Kindle payment architecture takes off, it may ultimately lead the way toward the standardized micropayment system whose nonexistence has caused so much turmoil in the news business -- a system many people wish had been built into the Web's original architecture, along with those standardized page locations.

We all know the story of how the information-wants-to-be-free ethos of the Web threatened the newspapers with extinction. Wouldn't it be ironic if books turned out to be their savior? (more)

[Ms. B. Havin]

WSJ also posts an interesting article about bloggers: America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire:

In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers, firefighters or even bartenders.

Who knew, eh?

[Holden West]

If things aren't bad enough, papers are laying off auxiliary staff like copy-editors, the people that catch errors before they make it to print.

[Jacques Cadé]

Here's news you're not likely to read in the TC: Canwest seeks wage cuts. Excerpt:

"The CWA/SCA Canada [Communications Workers of America] union said Friday the Winnipeg-based newspaper publisher (TSX: CGS) is asking for wage cuts of up to five per cent, which could save it $20 million a year and help it avoid a bankruptcy protection filing."

[mat]

Here's news you're not likely to read in the TC: Canwest seeks wage cuts. Excerpt:

"The CWA/SCA Canada [Communications Workers of America] union said Friday the Winnipeg-based newspaper publisher (TSX: CGS) is asking for wage cuts of up to five per cent, which could save it $20 million a year and help it avoid a bankruptcy protection filing."

Didn't they already freeze union and sub-staff wages, and cut management salaries back in January?

[yodsaker]

Saving $20 million isn't going to stop this barge from going down.

[Holden West]

The New York Times recently published an article on the euthanasia of sick patients in hospitals cut off from help in the Katrina aftermath. The editor claims it cost the equivalent of nearly $400,000 to produce.

[newostar]

We have to change/adapt to new media. Although I like reading a physical paper here and there, it is already old news by the time I read it.

Online revenues are key these days in terms of advertising and frankly most of the dinosaurs in the media industry are having trouble catching up or are reluctant to change.

[Holden West]

How Google plans to save newspapers

Google's proposal is fairly vague -- the "Business Model" paragraph is about three sentences long and has no numbers in it -- but the company expects to share revenue much like the iPhone App Store, where Apple skims 30 percent off the top and the developers keep the other 70. This kind of Darwinian model could be good for newspapers. It offers them more money and it forces consumers to choose to pay for what they read. When your options cost nothing, you don't have to justify your choices. When you have to pay cash, a finite good, suddenly you have to hold yourself accountable. People might read TMZ instead of The New York Times when both are free, but once they start charging, my guess is enough people would shell out the money for the Times.

[VicHockeyFan]

http://business.fina...tent-this-fall/

TORONTO — The Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s biggest newspapers, plans to begin charging readers for access to articles on its website amid an industry-wide search for alternatives to slumping print business.

The Toronto-based newspaper has yet to decide how many articles a reader will be able to access for free or what price it will charge after that number has been reached, it said on Thursday. Staff are also being asked to take unpaid leave over the summer to cut costs.

[Mike K.]

New York Times apparently brings in $85-million annually through online fees for access.

[VicHockeyFan]

New York Times apparently brings in $85-million annually through online fees for access.

But they sell a million papers a day.

1,000,000 x $1 paper average x 312 days is $312M, and paid circulation is a minor part of revenues, compared to ad sales.


Wikipedia says they have 1150 news room staffers.

At $75,000/yr each (reporters make $85k at NYT, so I'm just making up an average overall), that's $87,000,000 in salaries just for the newsroom.

[VicHockeyFan]

Yikes!

 

[lanforod]

That's a bad typo!

 

Better source: http://www.usnews.co...n-detect-sounds

[LJ]

I hear worms.

[johnk]

Interestingly, the Toronto Star (Canada's biggest daily) recently took down their pay wall. G&M still has one that kicks in after 10 free articles.

[AllseeingEye]

Interestingly, the Toronto Star (Canada's biggest daily) recently took down their pay wall. G&M still has one that kicks in after 10 free articles.

Interesting. TORSTAR Corp was the major investor in a local tech darling I was part of in the early 90's when the commercialized web truly was in its infancy. At the time we used to have strategy meetings fantasizing about putting employment, real estate and automobile ads online - and we did as routine as that seems in 2015. In fact the original database engine that powered that early real estate site is the ancestor upon which www.mls.ca now resides. Torstar dumped about $7M altogether into that enterprise before finally pulling the plug and bailing in 1996; and ever since I don't think they ever really have figured out how this newfangled "online" critter works......

Edited by AllseeingEye, 19 February 2015 - 04:02 PM.

[VicHockeyFan]

Doesn't Torstar own 10% of the local Black Press?

 

EDIT:  19%

 

http://www.torstar.c...ments/index.cfm

 

Torstar has a 19% interest in Black Press, a privately owned and operated company with its head office in Victoria, British Columbia. Black Press publishes more than 150 newspapers (weeklies, dailies and shoppers) in Western Canada and the U.S. and operates press centres in Canada, Washington State, Ohio and Hawaii. - See more at: http://www.torstar.c...h.xNpZTqEE.dpuf