Just seen the advert for The Times online, the one featuring the type of people (white, middle class, educated and apparently doing well for themselves) who use the site talking about how great it is to pay for using the site. Personally I can't see the point but does anyone? Why pay for the same news you can get for nothing elsewhere?
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And I resent every penny I shove in the direction of Rupert Murdoch.
Everything will end up that way in the end
Not necessarily.
The specialist stuff - FT/Wall St Journal will be subscription only, but generally an employer will pay for that. Keeping on-line stuff free works if you get enough hits and can persuade enough advertisers to part with their cash. The Guradian make a profit (or so I've been led to believe) from their site, but you need or will have to offer more than just news. Most sites have a property section and things like dating agencies which are good profit centres in their own right.
However if the Times paywall works then the other media outlets will follow, regardless.
I know thi sbecause I have just been doing some work for a publisher and we had this exact same conversation.
The problem is that too many people think it is worth it, pay the money, a no-choice situation evolves and everyone else has to either pay up too or go completely without.
As a magazine/newspaper designer of some 40 years I think there will always be a place for newspapers and magazines, simply depends on the contents and quality.
Online and subscription has more to do with multi national corporation, aspiration and market share, plus a hatred of print unions from the past. Combine this with the collection of information either in word and images and you have
a very potent basis for multi media adaption. Frankly I am rather glad that I am at the end of my career in print if the likes of Murdoch are to be in control .I can see my designs and images being used for bloody years, to increase the coffers of this greedy bastard, who hardly paid a fortune in the first place. Having worked for the FT, IPC and EMAP and having another battle with them at present over something I designed nearly 30 years ago they are still using ( and not paying a penny).
The Times changed for the worse when Murdoch took it over. A good friend of mine was the design director of it up until a couple of years ago, believe me he is not doing this for the good of the country, or to inform people! why do you think he is so pissed off with the bbc and there news web sites...... get the drift!
I totally agree and believe your Sky scenario could apply equally well when attributed to our beloved Beeb.
Hits mean nothing compared to readership. You're in a far weaker position going to an advertiser and saying you've got a hit, than going to them and saying "I've got a product that people are willing to pay for every week". We all browse the internet, we all know how meaningless hits can be, but an actual reader that will pay for a newspaper has advertising value. Online advertising isn't making up the shortfall and that's why newspapers are in such trouble.
What they should have done is 10 years ago offered the option of buying their paper online, say for half the price. But instead they just gave it away for free, people got used to getting something for free, and now it'll be a struggle to get anyone to pay for online content.
The high-end stuff will but why on earth would people pay for the online Sun/NOTW? You can get the same stuff everywhere else (football, showbiz, gossip,breasts) for free?
This is why the Dirty Digger bought the WSJ - because it actually has a profitable online arm.
Murdoch dominates the bottom-end and middle of the market which are the most resistant to paying for online content, its why he hates the BBC so much.
The web's been free since its inception and there's nothing on the TImes site you can't get elsewhere for nothing.
Spot on Jimmy.
A shame for consumers that more of us don't think this way and simply refuse to shell out.
Can you direct me to where you can get all their sports columnists articles please?
Quite like the stuff Syed, Dickinson and especially Barnes put out, but only see it in the paper or on their pay site.
But Sky (well I use Virgin) are well worth the money in my view.
If people refuse to pay then in the long run broadsheet journalism will be watered down or go bust. It'd probably be replaced by some sort of free news organisation, but they'd struggle to pay for a journalist to go to Haiti to do a feature spread, so quality journalism just wouldn't happen any more.
No one has any sort of moral right to get a professionally produced product for free. As everything moves online, people are going to have to pay for something at some point or things just won't get made. The pay wall idea isn't the papers trying to pull a fast one - if you haven't noticed, quality newspapers aren't exactly rolling in profit at the moment. I used to buy a couple of broadsheets but now they offer me everything for free online, so I don't any more, but I accept that it's a joke of a business model and I'd be willing to pay in future if they start charging.
However i've got no problem paying for a product or service if I benefit in some way. The notion of whether it is online or offline is not important. Take the Charlton Player for example, I think it's totally rubbish, but i'll pay for it because it means i can listen to Charlton games.
I've been on facebook and seen people complaining about ads being displayed and asking how can they get rid of them. This really winds me up. Nothing is free! It has to be paid for in some shape or form or it will simply cease to exist.
I'll quite happily pay for the Economist and FT. If push came to shove I may pay for the Telegraph. But there is no model that says poor quality journalism can find a pay revenue stream. The FT can, as do other lead financial papers, for obvious business critical reasons.
I read Le Monde weekly, and if they can make an excellent product with elegant adverts then that'll be it for me. Murdochs have consistently shown themselves to be failures in the new media age. MySpace? This will be one more failure.
Let's face it his whole empire was only kept up by Sky and Fox in the 90's. And he hardly paid a penny in corporate tax that he owed for years in the 90's. Just owe too much, and be too big, then you never have to pay. Murdoch is scum business and Sky/Fox news are the worst examples.
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And he's trying to take over the chunk of Sky that he doesn't already own. It'll be interesting to see whether Cameron's government will do what Thatcher's did when he wanted to buy the Times/Sunday Times to add to the Sun and NoTW and keel over to keep him happy. I doubt he'll succeed in any case, EU legislation is now much stronger.
Their sport is excellent though in my opinion. And that's the most important bit of any newspaper!
Oh no doubt Murdoch is the devil incarnate, but that doesn't make the principle of a pay wall a bad one.
As David Mitchell puts it: Ruper Murdoch may be evil, but that doesn't mean his paywall is
The internet is a very different place, and I can't see how charging a fee is viable when there are so many free sources of information already out there. Sites that offer very specialist information (like the FT) are obviously different, but the showbiz gossip, sports news, biased politics coverage, arts reviews etc. that make up a mainstream newspaper are readily available elsewhere, at no charge, and often by better informed authors than your average Murdoch hack. For example, why would I want to pay Murdoch for a paragraph or two about the latest Charlton game written by someone who probably wasn't even there, when there are blogs like Addicks Diary or New York Addick out there?
The internet is a very different place, and I can't see how charging a fee is viable when there are so many free sources of information already out there. Sites that offer very specialist information (like the FT) are obviously different, but the showbiz gossip, sports news, biased politics coverage, arts reviews etc. that make up a mainstream newspaper are readily available elsewhere, at no charge, and often by better informed authors than your average Murdoch hack. For example, why would I want to pay Murdoch for a paragraph or two about the latest Charlton game written by someone who probably wasn't even there, when there are blogs like Addicks Diary or New York Addick out there?[/quote]
Nail on the head.
Which is good cos you couldnt pay me to read it!
I think newspapers need to start being allot smarter with their websites. There will always be competition, but offer the news in the right way and in the right format and you will get visitors.
Get enough visitors and you'll make enough money from advertising.