Would you pay 10 cents to read this column online? How about a nickel?
It's a question I've been pondering for the past couple of weeks ever since a major news magazine ran an analysis piece on the future of the newspaper industry.
If you have an interest in newspapers and the challenges the industry is facing, there's a good chance you've read this Walter Isaacson cover story for Time magazine. I certainly noticed it on the newsstand at the grocery story one night while making an apple juice run for my 2-year-old. In big, black letters against an all-white background was this phrase: “How to Save Your NEWSPAPER: A Modest Proposal.” Below the words was a cutout photograph of the New York Times wrapped around a fish.
In the story itself, Isaacson - the former managing editor at Time and a highly respected journalist - outlines some of his ideas on what newspapers should be doing to ensure their long-term survival.
Not surprisingly, Isaacson sees digital news becoming the dominant format. In fact, he points out, more people got their news last year online than in print, according to the Pew Research Center.
What's interesting about that statistic is that the newspaper companies are still the primary source of that news content. When you combine print and online readership, newspapers have more readers than they've ever had.
The problem for the industry is that more and more people are not paying anything for that content. Although advertising has been the primary revenue source for newspapers, circulation revenue - through newsstand sales and subscriptions - has been a vital part of funding the operation. Isaacson believes newspapers must figure out a way to bring back some of that revenue through their online ventures.
But instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to charging for online content, Isaacson is proposing a range of packages that allow people to pay for what they want, and he's proposing that it must be cheap. For people who want the entire paper, there could be monthly, quarterly or yearly subscriptions.
For other customers, though, he cites the iTunes model for music sales as an example. You see a headline and perhaps a paragraph that interests you, you click on it and agree to pay a minimal charge that's deducted from a prepaid account or automatically billed to a credit card. It's fast, easy and cheap.
But would it work?
That's the question I pose to you, the readers, especially those of you who are now in that group that gets your news primarily online.
Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's column appears Tuesdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net
If you have an interest in newspapers and the challenges the industry is facing, there's a good chance you've read this Walter Isaacson cover story for Time magazine. I certainly noticed it on the newsstand at the grocery story one night while making an apple juice run for my 2-year-old. In big, black letters against an all-white background was this phrase: “How to Save Your NEWSPAPER: A Modest Proposal.” Below the words was a cutout photograph of the New York Times wrapped around a fish.
In the story itself, Isaacson - the former managing editor at Time and a highly respected journalist - outlines some of his ideas on what newspapers should be doing to ensure their long-term survival.
Not surprisingly, Isaacson sees digital news becoming the dominant format. In fact, he points out, more people got their news last year online than in print, according to the Pew Research Center.
What's interesting about that statistic is that the newspaper companies are still the primary source of that news content. When you combine print and online readership, newspapers have more readers than they've ever had.
The problem for the industry is that more and more people are not paying anything for that content. Although advertising has been the primary revenue source for newspapers, circulation revenue - through newsstand sales and subscriptions - has been a vital part of funding the operation. Isaacson believes newspapers must figure out a way to bring back some of that revenue through their online ventures.
But instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to charging for online content, Isaacson is proposing a range of packages that allow people to pay for what they want, and he's proposing that it must be cheap. For people who want the entire paper, there could be monthly, quarterly or yearly subscriptions.
For other customers, though, he cites the iTunes model for music sales as an example. You see a headline and perhaps a paragraph that interests you, you click on it and agree to pay a minimal charge that's deducted from a prepaid account or automatically billed to a credit card. It's fast, easy and cheap.
But would it work?
That's the question I pose to you, the readers, especially those of you who are now in that group that gets your news primarily online.
Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's column appears Tuesdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net
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excnyer wrote on Mar 2, 2009 11:59 AM:
Don't even think of nickel and diming people. We are getting $crewed everytime we turn around by businesses. Gas prices raising the costs of everyday products; cost of gas goes down however costs of goods stay the same. With the economy going south, you cannot be thinking of charging for online news! "