Newspapers Charging for Digital Content...Logical or Insane?

The mobile devices, especially the new tablets, resuscitated a suffocating print newspaper biz by creating a popular niche for them online...And ever since, powers-to-be have been splitting their mind atoms trying to figure out how to monetize the digital news online!

The Financial Times has been charging for online content for some years, Rupert Murdoch's The Daily is a subscription news rag on the iPad only that you have to subscribe to (haven't heard how successful this is yet) and now the NY Times is implementing a pay model on 28 March 2011.

First, let me say I believe all good content producers should make money.

Second, I also believe that the NET should remain free to users and that good digital content providers will (many already have) monetize through online paid advertisers.

Having said that, now let me move to point: Many newspapers have been forced online to make up for lost print ad revenue...But, from all I've read, this move has been successful and their digital ad revenues are up (and even pulled some of the print ad moolah back up due to pulling in new print subscribers from digital-savy young readers).

If I am right, and I invite opposing points of view, then why in the hell do the newspaper publishers NEED to charge online visitors a subscription fee also?

Could it be old-fashioned GREED? You damn right! At least that's how I'm reading this right now.

You see, The NY Times wants to charge $15, $20, all the way up to $35 (depending on your package) per month! Hell, Rupert only charges around $9.95 per month for his Daily.

If your opinion is otherwise and you have supporting information...convince me.

Matthew Flamm, of Crain's New York Business, has these details on the upcoming NY Times pay model:

NY Times to charge for digital content

After a couple of years of talking about charging for online content to make up for declining print advertising revenue, The New York Times Co. has finally put its pay model where its mouth is. The company's flagship newspaper announced Thursday that its new metering system and paid mobile applications will launch globally March 28. A smart phone app package was made available Thursday in Canada.

Employing a system similar to the one that has been used successfully for years by The Financial Times, NYTimes.com will allow visitors to read up to 20 articles a month without paying. Once they go over the limit, they'll be charged $15 a month for access to the website and to the New York Times' smart phone app. A $20 monthly payment buys access to the website and the paper's tablet app, while $35 is good for complete digital access.

Subscribers to the print edition will continue to have free access to all digital extensions. As of September, the paper averaged 575,000 subscribers to the daily paper, and 990,000 to the Sunday edition, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

In a bid to hold onto advertisers drawn by NYTimes.com's massive audience, visitors who arrive at the site via search, blogs and social media will not be charged either, even if they have gone over their monthly limit. Some search engines will have a daily limit of free links, however.

The long awaited announcement drew a mixed reception from analysts, with some arguing that the Times was charging too much.

“The pricing is pushing the edge of what may be possible,” said Ken Doctor, a media analyst at Outsell Inc., who added that the upward limit on digital payments was generally considered to be $9.95 a month. “It's an uphill battle to get non-print people to pay a minimum of $195 a year for something that was free.”

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Everything Just Can’t be Free Forever!

Giant newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch has been trying to figure out how to charge for online news for some time...He already has some success with The Wall Street Journal, but, this is a paper geared toward business people who expect to pay for so-called propriety news...He is trying to monetize other online consumer news to save the newspaper industry (really his own hide)...Seems advertizing income and subscriptions are way down!

Some simple questions by this outsider simpleton:

1- If your online product represents the gold standard in your niche, why should online advertising go down? If you can implement the attitude that you only accept ads from the top and true businesses and they have been suitably vetted, I would think advertisers would be knocking your door down to get to you (and into this sppecial ad category) with money in hand!

2- Why not get a letter of agreement between all major newspaper publishers to give say 40% of online news free with some payment for remaining news...or something similar? I think this is where old Rupert is falling short...You know, getting the old consortium.

Truthfully, I feel that the conglomerate that Murdoch has built up in the newspaper business is bad for this country, by any standard, and should definitely be broken up. Especially since he and his papers represent a drastically one-sided (and therefore short-sided) point of view that favors Wall Street (big business...often greedy & crooked) over Main Street (the majority of the country and the main purpose for it's existence...of, by and for the people; and all that stuff.

Rupert, old chap, you can't take it with you when you die...You're going out the same way you came in...naked and poor.

Frank Reed of Marketing Pilgrim reports this:

Earlier this month I explored the idea that Rupert Murdoch’s impending paywall announcement was just that; impending. In a News Corp earnings call he said that the publishing giant would have something to announce in 3-4 weeks regarding a group of publishers that would be banding together to take specialized content and put it in an area that would require a subscription for access. The conventional wisdom, even for someone as adamant about the need to paywalls now, is that there needs to be a consortium of sorts to make this a reality.

Well, we are just about at the 3-week point of this self-imposed time line and there are some doubts as to just how real this whole deal is. Peter Kafka of All Things Digital reported earlier this week.

Within the next two weeks or so, we’re supposed to hear about Rupert Murdoch’s digital news subscription service–the one he has been trying to put together for many months.

One problem: That service is supposed to feature content from publications other than those owned by Murdoch. And sources familiar with News Corp.’s plans tell me Murdoch has yet to sign partners on to the venture.

Read more at Marketing Pilgrim: http://alturl.com/hu4s