I work in the newspaper industry myself and have seen many missteps first hand by clueless managers who like to recite the latest buzz words, but don’t have a clue on how to put them into action.
But the biggest mistake our industry made probably came at the dawn of the Internet age, when we started giving away our content for free. Once that cat was out of the bag there was no going back. I can’t tell you how many people have told me they don’t buy the paper because they can just read it for free online.
The music industry missed out on a great opportunity to get in on some music downloading schemes early on, but turned their nose up at them. Then they turned around and launched massive lawsuits against downloaders.
I think both industries screwed up royally in how they initially approached the Web, and both are operating on outdated models. But at least the newspaper industry hasn’t actively pissed off its audience (I’m sure someone will come in here and talk about how we’ve alienated conservatives, but people have always had political beefs with their local newspaper; that’s nothing new).
The music industry industry not only refused to understand the paradigm shift wrought by the Web, but pissed away whatever goodwill they may have had, by going after the downloaders, and alienating anyone who may have been sympathetic to their cause.
Oh the music industry, no question. I don’t think any of the major labels have come up with a decent business model that will allow them to survive. On the other hand many major newspapers seem to be at least *trying *to make the transition to online publication.
In the end, we NEED people to gather news. If a viable online business model never evolves then we’ll eventually have to finance news gathering as a public service paid wholly or partially by taxes.
But we don’t really NEED record labels. Instead I expect we’ll see the emergence of promoters who specialize in building brand awareness for individual acts, but who don’t have anything to do with sales or distribution.
Both had troubled buisiness models due to lack of adaptation to the new conditions, but I don’t remember the newspaper industry suing six-year-olds and grandmothers.
I get a newspaper on Wed, Fri and Sunday. The rest of the paper is in digital form online. www.digitalfreepress.I prefer reading the paper. The crossword is better in paper. Part of the problem is a daily can not keep up with fast breaking news. When Kennedy died at night, it was on line long before an edition was due to come out.
The paper could stress long involved analysis of issues but they seem to shy away from that. They are cutting writers and making their product weaker. The price has gone up but home delivery has been slasjed. How does that make sense to a consumer?
Delivery has been slashed. Correction to above.
I can assure you that if it weren’t free, many people in my age group (early 20s), myself included, wouldn’t pay for the online material any more than we’d pay for the print copy. There are just too many sources of news out there that are free. The downside of this hypothetical for you, as a newspaper, is that now people aren’t buying your print paper, and they’re not buying your online content either, so you’ve got far less exposure than you do now (where the online material is free).
Actually, the irony is a lot of papers have more readers than ever before. The problem is most of those readers are just reading the paper online for free instead of paying for a print copy. And newspaper Web sites don’t command near as much money for ads as does the print product.
The problem for the future of news papers, either in print or on line, is that the
response is TOO SLOW.
The news I read from other on-line sources does not appear in print until several days later, by which time it is stale to me. Most on-line news papers are simply that day’s print edition posted on the paper’s website. So the on-line paper is just as out dated as the print version.
I want my news minutes or maybe hours after it happens and can be reported. The current model of ‘news papers’ will remain broken until this is addressed.
Actually, that was just my point.
I think there will always be the need for music companies or labels in one form or another because many musicians are great artists, but couldn’t organize a one car parade, much less manage and market themselves effectively so someone has to step in.
Re newspapers I think the situation is much more dire. Print newspapers are collapsing faster than anyone realizes. The New York Times and the Washington Post are both huge money losers at this point. I love the Post but I am not willing to pay for it’s specialized content when I can get news free all over the place. If all news becomes pay only at some point I suppose I’ll subscribe, but there’s a lot of free portals to burn through before that ever becomes a fact.
Newspapers income models are advertising driven and if fewer people are reading the print copy, and the net copy is free, why bother paying? Craig’s List is the main killer of the daily newspaper classified business which was a huge cash cow for newspapers. I’ve only used the newspaper classifieds a few times over the years, but I was always surprised at the hefty price for a few lines of print. At some point some genius may figure out a way to monetize news content in a way that works for the web, but at this point that hasn’t happened.
Newspapers problems are based on two factors: overextension (buying properties outside the newspaper business) and a bad economy. The basic news operations are struggling only because ad revenues are down across the board. Craigslist is not a major factor – people just don’t trust it enough. (Would you reply to a help wanted ad on Craigslist?)
When the economy comes back, newspaper ad revenues will return.
As for the record industry, there was no way they were going to win. People were stealing their product. The final result (as I predicted several years ago) is that music will concentrate on groups that can fill arenas. Things like American Idol, for instance. File sharing has been a disaster not just for the record companies, but for musicians across the board. Exposure is only worth something when you can buy a loaf of bread with it.
How much of the cost of a subscription to a newspaper is the delivery cost?
Do newspapers really make that much money off subscription fees? What percent of their income is from ad revenue vs. subscription fees?
See this article
Pew Center illustrates how Craigslist is killing newspapers
Re people “not trusting” Craig’s List is this some kind of joke? People under 35 use CL for everything from help wanted to apartment ads to … well almost everything. Older people might be more leery of online ads but thinking the newspapers are going to somehow bounce back from a crumbling business model when the economy recovers is (IMO) wishful thinking.
Yeah, newspapers were basically advertising funded already–especially on the content side. Some of the printing & distribution staff would lose their jobs, but the paper had an adaptable model.
Music sales are completely undermined by the internet. And once torrenting was developed? They were screwed. Unless you start charging ISP’s for [del]every byte they move[/del] at least large amounts of data loaded (thus forcing them to pass the cost on to customers), you can’t really make torrenting not cost-effective.
“Has to?” :dubious: Why should anyone in the public be willing to pay for that? Let’em go busking on the street corner.
Newspapers need online “Tip Jars”.
Another vote for “music industry”; making much of your customer base despise you is obviously bad for business. When the common reaction to accusations that online file sharing is theft is often not just denial that it is, but “So? They don’t deserve anything better” then the industry has dug a huge hole for itself.
As for newspapers and the mainstream media in general, besides the other reasons mentioned I’ll say that another problem is how they’ve abandoned quality over the years. They are ever more shallow, with less expert reporters even when they bother to actually investigate instead of just parroting somebody’s public relations department. The one thing that a newspaper and the other traditional media could have offered was quality born of experience. Professionalism; skill; contacts, etc. But they dumped that for short term profit.
I’m under 35 and I don’t trust Craigslist. If I had it my way it that website would never be opened on any of my computers ever again.
“Would you reply to a help wanted ad on Craigslist?”
Yes. I did. Got the reasonably well paying job I have now by doing so. BTW, I’m 50.
They actually lose money on subscriptions. I found when working with some major newspapers, they generally would spend roughly $50 to acquire a subscriber and get much less than that back. The issue here is that they can’t give them away for free or even with prices slashed too far.
In order to have circulation audited as paid, they generally have to receive at least 50% of stated subscription prices. Otherwise, the auditing bureaus (primarily ABC) will put the circulation under “free circulation”, which implies that the reader didn’t care enough about the product to actually purchase it. It will fall under the same fate as the TMC products that pile up on your front lawn and rot in the rain.
If they receive that circulation for enough of the advertised subscription costs, it counts as paid circulation, which is what advertisers are usually looking for. This is where ALL of the money comes from, generally. A mix of classified and display advertising, though I’ve only worked with display so I can’t really say what proportion goes to each.