Comments on: QOTW: Why are newspapers continually losing money?

By: Local Donkey

Local Donkey — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:01:59 +0000

@dipps How would Google or Craigslist make newspapers money?

I agree that a newspaper subscription isn’t going to bring in enough revenue, but hell, neither is advertising. Newspapers are on their way out the door and I don’t think I have a problem with that as long as someone steps up and provides well reported, important news. I want to kill myself everytime I have to sit through watching the local news because all they talk about is the state fair and briefly “someone was killed in North St. Louis today…back to you Dan, tell us about the cardinals season.”

@josh I would probably consider paying for local news if it was actually good and relevant.

By: dipps

dipps — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:45:34 +0000

Newspapers make money from advertising. They sure as hell don’t make anything from 50 cents an issue. If print editions want to even consider surviving, they need to totally rethink how they advertise. One way would be to relinquish control over that whole department and hire successful folks in the field. Maybe Google or Craigslist could save the day.

By: Josh Kayser

Josh Kayser — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:01:05 +0000

I think you touched on a good point. To make any real money on content you have to appeal to a niche and have some way to monetize or enough other business backing to where it can be a losing venture (but who likes that). This is essentially what all our websites do. We give content and find a way to make money off of it. We have sites that, for all intensive purposes, lose money but they support the sites that make money.

Its tough to say what will happen if profit driven companies control the information flow. its what is going on right now but in a different sense.

Where I falter is with local newspapers like the Stl-PD or Tribune. Their “niche” essentially lies within a geographic area. How can they survive? Are people willing to pay for the casual perusal of poorly reported local news? I know my grandparents would but I doubt our generation will.

I really like Mark Cubans idea (http://blogmaverick.com/2009/08/08/my-advice-to-fox-myspace-on-selling-content-yes-you-can/) about packaging it up as a subscription based term agreement with things people are willing to pay for. Once they are paying for it and the appeal of the initial gifts/gimmicks wear off it will be just like a cable subscription. You’re used to it coming out of your account and used to paying for it. Best idea ive seen yet really.

I think all newspapers should just cancel the print and hire SEO’s to teach them how to monetize their content.

By: Local Donkey

Local Donkey — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:00:19 +0000

I’ve been wrestling with this issue for a while, trying to figure out an answer. Obviously newspapers need to move away from subscription based business models. Readers might be willing to pay a subscription to the WSJ and the NYT but probably not the STL-PD or the Columbia Tribune. ESPN has a free content model that gets you to the site and then charges you for certain specific articles. Granted, they’ve got a magazine and like 800 TV channels to help even out the costs, but that might be the way to go.

I had a similar discussion with Nate a few months back and he mentioned the idea that separate industries would in the future be providing the news for their industry. Like the mortgage company blog that eventually becomes the leader in mortgage/real estate industry news because the mortgage company can afford to back it. There are still problems to that, like how can you get unbiased news from a private organization that may be involved, what industry can afford to back the news sites pertaining to crime/corruption, and who does the real in-depth, investigative local reporting.

An old article by David Simon from the Washington-Post on why journalists still matter: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022703591.html

Good post. Interesting topic.