Newspapers Conspiring To Hasten Their Own Demise

[babylonsister]

http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=1282

Newspapers Conspiring To Hasten Their Own Demise
Mark @ 11:43 am


James Warren of The Atlantic reports that a bevy of newspaper executives gathered yesterday in Chicago for a clandestine discussion about “Models to Monetize Content.” Amongst the participants are the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication. The unadorned agenda of this cabal of publishers is to figure out how to make news consumers pick up the tab that advertisers have traditionally paid.

Setting aside the obvious appearance of a violation of anti-trust laws, the main problem with these old-media relics is that they still don’t understand the problems confronting them.

First of all, they aren’t losing money because subscription receipts are declining. Subscription revenue, while not insignificant, was never the foundation of the industry’s financial well being. It is advertisers that keep newspapers (and most media) in business. The value of subscribers is due more to the fact that higher circulation brings higher ad revenue than to the value of the actual subscription price.

Secondly, subscriptions aren’t declining because newspapers cost too much. They are declining because too often the product isn’t worth paying for. That would be true whether it were delivered to your doorstep or your browser. The state of the economy cannot be overlooked as a contributor to the subscriber exodus either. But when newspapers respond to tough economic times by cutting newsroom staff, they have to expect that readers will notice the falloff in quality. Once people perceive that they aren’t getting their money’s worth, they will be no more likely to pay for an online subscription than the dead tree variety.

Warren astutely notes in his article that newspaper executives are not the brightest inks in the well. Many of them are holdovers from an era that hasn’t kept up with modern competition. Others are transplants from TV or radio who lack experience in a medium that has little in common with its electronic cousins. The evidence of their shortcomings is observable in their haste to alter a business model that has worked fine for a couple of hundred years or more. To respond to current financial woes by shifting from a model that relies on advertisers to one that pinches readers is profoundly shortsighted. The economy, and advertising revenues, are bound to recover, but dimwitted decisions by panicky publishers could aggravate and prolong what would otherwise be a temporary setback.

There are challenges facing the newspaper business, to be sure. But there is no reason to presume that the sort of broad distribution model that has led to success in virtually every form of media has suddenly become inoperative. Newspapers need to adapt to the digital world in a manner that promotes access and ubiquity. Walling themselves off by erecting subscription barriers can only make matters worse and result in further isolation and debt.

Finally, if they think that by colluding with one another to set the terms of doing business with them will endear them to their customers, they are even stupider than I thought.

[hobbit709]

1. The local fishwrap costs 75¢ and $1.75 on Sun.

And all the local nutjobs accuse it of being a "liberal" paper. At best it's just right of center.
When I delivered it 12 years ago one of the carriers always said that if he wanted to read what was going on in Austin, he gets a Dallas paper. The Dallas paper would tell you what was going on here two days before the fishwrap.
I buy one maybe once a month on a Fri. only to see if there's a good sale at Frys.

[AllentownJake]

2. My "local" rag will be out of business by the end of the year

They just laid off half their staff, their local section covers church fairs or trumped up local "scandals"

They haven't reported actual local news in years.

Other than the elderly no one reads it that much anymore.

I say "local" because they are a tribune paper.

Oh yeah and despite the fact that they constantly attack Democrats in their news section and right puff pieces on Republicans, the local conservatives call them a liberal paper because their editorial page has a few liberals on it.

[azul]

5. And this stronghold of truth and information is the filter

that holds our elected representatives accountable?

Without it give up pretense, or how can we enable it to function properly?

The trick is the government is the thing the media is to watch over, so it is a conflict to have them regulate it. Money and special interests are regulating it by design and default.

[AllentownJake]

6. Elected officials are the ones you don't have to be worried about anymore

All power is centralized in the hands of Corporate America.

The media likes to focus on government because government is the biggest threat to their corporate masters.

[azul]

3. Cutting the value of the product is nuts, business-wise.

Are they in collusion to kill the media watchdog function, and let corporations and government devolve into a fascist corporate-state -with total media control?

[kestrel91316]

7. Well, yes, as a matter of fact. They are.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Definitely violating restraint of trade and Sherman anti-trust

Here's a thread from yesterday .
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5734711

I think they might be missing a major piece of the puzzle. The MORE unfettered they make access to their content, the MORE people will be driven to their sites and the MORE money they can charge advertisers.

Fair use rules like those on DU work on their behalf. One person reads an interesting column,article, etc., posts a short excerpt and a link to the original article and drives thousands of otherwise unknowing consumers/readers to their site. It's now up to them to make hay with all these new eyeballs. I can't even count all the great publications that I now go to on a regular basis because I was made aware of them by someone linking to their site.

I think the larger and more underlying issue is that there is less money for advertising in a tanking economy and less money for discretionary spending in a tanking economy. Consumers are NOT going to be spending any kind of appreciable money for web content, because it's just not there.

I can think of some easy ways to monetize their sites and content right off the top of my head. It's too bad that they have to collude with one another at the expense of the consumer, if that is what ultimately happens.

The Obama Justice Department should come down hard on them. You don't want to read about the grocery stores having a meeting about how much to charge for apples, you don't want all the heating and cooling contractors to decide how much a new air- conditioning unit should go for, you don't want all the hairdressers to have a meeting about what to charge for a haircut, etc. Restraint of trade is a very easy concept to understand.

[L0oniX]

8. This is the pay off for what they all did in the run up to the Iraq war.

[azul]

9. You mean like putting lipstick on Dick and Junior

and letting them ride roughshod over the constitution while pretending to be at war with an emotion?

Yikes, we've been duped.