If you don’t get around to reading anything else this fine Sunday, do take a look at this post Business Models of News.
(It’s written by my co-blogger on the The Mancunian Way blog Paul Robinson but, as he points out, isn’t about the MEN, it’s about the global news industry.)
As well as a detailed, and harsh, analysis of what he considers has gone wrong;
- Newspapers didn’t understand the web when they got started
- The ad sales teams on newspapers took too long to understand online business models
- They then undermined their own business model
- Newspapers realised they need to take a new mindset and blame everybody else for where they are right now
- They then decide the option is to try and get customers to pay for content they don’t want to pay for
- Absolutely no consideration is made of what being an online newspaper consists of.
Paul also offers some good pointers to what could be done to change the situation for the future. Some of his suggestions make uncomfortable reading;
- Customers do not want to pay for anything. Ever. You have to work hard to convince them it’s worthwhile. You’re doing an awful job of that, so stop trying to do it
- Invest in journalists, programmers, graphic designers, information visualisation specialists and people who understand online content. Fire the majority of your middle management who aren’t directly involved in producing content or ad sales.
But comfortable isn’t a place any of us in online news are familiar with at the moment so it’s a timely thought-provoking post.
Agree with the analysis? Too naive? Whatever your view I’d be interested to hear it.
Dim Sum Digital 
While the analysis of how we got here is broadly right – though it misses the absolute paranoia newspapers have about online cannabilising their print model – the advice for the future breaks down to “think laterally”. Gee, thanks.
Publishers avoid pay per click because it requires highly targeted ads that generate tiny payments that only make money when you have the transactional scale of someone like Google. It also ties advertising to response, which denies you the golden goose of “brand awareness” and is especially tricky in local markets when most of your advertisers don’t have their own websites. Oh, and the advertiser also has to have a compelling product.
I’ve not got any better suggestions, but I would bring a different perspective. Yes, newspapers are struggling with a business model for online, but so are lots of other people.
How long before Twitter dies on its arse because the venture capitalists get bored? It’s already scrapped SMS outside of the US on cost grounds and there’s no substantial revenue in sight.
It’s not only the dinosaurs that have to deal with a fickle freeloading public…
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Strikes me as spot on.
Having bobbed about in the chilly waters of the new media start-up seas for the last three years, it’s been a bit like watching the Titanic going down…
… can see people moving the deckchairs round; can even hear a band playing, but below the waterline you can equally hear the watertight doors and bulkheads cracking and collapsing. One by one..
Paul’s right, old media is going down fast… trick now is to avoid your little life raft being swamped by those finally abandoning ship.
That and them demanding to play with your survival toys for now’t…
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James….
Paul’s point is you don’t even try to earn web advertising; it’s all free bolt ons to your paper advertising…
And we know, cos we follow Archant’s ad reps round Norwich; we know the conversations that you’re not having.
And we are.
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Hi Rick,
I’ll freely admit that our ad reps have been slow to get to grips with online and too often our web offerings are at the back of their sales books – but we do sell web display and it’s a rapidly growing part of our business.
That said, I don’t see anything wrong with packaging print and web together; we’ve always bundled titles together so why not channels?
Print circulation is in decline but revenue per reader/visitor is still much higher than online so we’d be mad to ignore it. I admire what you’ve done with myfootballwriter, but newspaper publishers can’t just turn their backs on their biggest revenue stream.
Oh, and the Titanic took less than three hours to sink. You’ve been at it for three years and I suspect print will be around for quite a bit longer yet – you might want to find a new analogy!
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James,
I’ll ask my Mrs what the waters like at a little after 4pm this Friday…
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5pm update: Word on the street is that there’s another 54 people in the water… one in three of Archant (Norfolk) journalists…
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