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drew
Radiant
Premium Member
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

drew

Premium Member

Business Plan

While I am no fan of subsidies and propping up fail(ing/ed) business models, I'd like to know from some folks what the business plan is for the news media.

Here's where I see "we" are at:
•Hardly anyone under the age of about 40 (no source for this number, just anecdotal experience) wants to buy a newspaper in favor of online news.
•Virtually no one will pay for a subscription to an online news source. Some places have semi-paywalls, however people just look for alternative sources of the same information.
•Most people hate online advertisements - whether they are pop-ups, banner ads, click-through-to-see-content, whatever.
•Technologies like AdBlock work very well and are seeing wider use as more people switch to IE-alternative browsers.

Now for my question... how does everyone propose that reporters get paid? You and I don't want to pay for it. The for-profit companies aren't interested in being unprofitable...

What's the plan here? Something's gotta give, right?
ericthered26
join:2011-09-29
Hamilton, OH

ericthered26

Member

Who cares what their business plan is. It's not the job of someone else to come up with a business plan for a business they don't own LOL.

Nothing has "got to give." If no one wants the product newspapers are selling, then the reporters better find a new career.

drew
Radiant
Premium Member
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

drew

Premium Member

said by ericthered26:

Nothing has "got to give." If no one wants the product newspapers are selling, then the reporters better find a new career.

So you're saying that you'd welcome the "death" of written journalism?

Immer
Gentleman
Premium Member
join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

2 recommendations

Immer to drew

Premium Member

to drew
I think the first thing that needs to be addressed is the profession of journalism. Something needs to change. It used to be about getting the story out first (breaking the news coverage), and then "asking the tough questions". With the advent of the blogosphere, reporters cannot be the first to break the news story, so they run with whatever is going viral and try to be the first to either "ask the tough question" or "sensationalize it into entertainment". I'd like to see the profession of journalism step back from being the "first to break the news" and return to fact-checking and closing up the headlines and viral videos.

The news media could do with more analysts and fewer "reporters" in my opinion, especially given the mass group-think that goes on. The network that can provide the most complete picture of "what is going on" will be top dog... the rest will be regarded as equal to tabloid media operations. I'd pay a monthly fee for credible analysis... but the industry hasn't demonstrated proficiency in this regard yet.

As this money dries up, we'll see more polarization of media outlets as each seeks political favor in hopes of a guaranteed bottom line. This country is extremely paparazzi friendly, so we might also see that cancer experience some rapid growth.

kpfx
join:2005-10-28
San Antonio, TX

kpfx to drew

Member

to drew
said by drew:

Most people hate online advertisements - whether they are pop-ups, banner ads, click-through-to-see-content, whatever.

Yes, people hate advertisements, but people also tolerate them (up to a certain degree). The advertising model has worked for television and online news sources for many years.
said by drew:

Virtually no one will pay for a subscription to an online news source. Some places have semi-paywalls, however people just look for alternative sources of the same information.

But people will pay for a subscription service if there is valuable content that you can't get elsewhere. Nobody will pay a subscription nowadays for a local newspaper that just reprints AP/Reuters articles and writes about a dozen local fluff pieces (which is what a majority of them do). However, news services such as the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are profitable because they actually have some quality research and reporting going into their content.
said by drew:

Now for my question... how does everyone propose that reporters get paid? You and I don't want to pay for it. The for-profit companies aren't interested in being unprofitable...

What's the plan here? Something's gotta give, right?

There's no reason the news industry can't survive on advertising and specialty subscription models (i.e. WSJ).

Gone is the old pre-internet newspaper model where a local shop would just put together AP/Reuters articles, write a dozen local articles pulled from the daily police report, cram it with ads and push it out the door for $1.50 each.

The "news" market will not disappear. What we're simply seeing is a local/regional print market that is over-saturated with suppliers when compared with the number of advertisers the market can support. We're already past the days when every city had two or three newspapers each, the trend just needs to continue until it finds balance. That's how free market works.
Wilsdom
join:2009-08-06

1 recommendation

Wilsdom to drew

Member

to drew
What reporters? Almost everything that appears is just propaganda written by corporations or the government. Asking us to pay twice for this is obscene. The real news is revealed by unpaid sources, and in age of the internet it's much more efficient and safe to self-publish on Wikileaks.

pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium Member
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

pnh102 to drew

Premium Member

to drew
said by drew:

Now for my question... how does everyone propose that reporters get paid? You and I don't want to pay for it. The for-profit companies aren't interested in being unprofitable...

We get a weekly newspaper (the Gazette (MD)) that is paid for by advertising and has plenty of local news stories. I pay nothing for it, and they seem to be doing OK.

drew
Radiant
Premium Member
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

drew to kpfx

Premium Member

to kpfx
said by kpfx:

said by drew:

Most people hate online advertisements - whether they are pop-ups, banner ads, click-through-to-see-content, whatever.

Yes, people hate advertisements, but people also tolerate them (up to a certain degree). The advertising model has worked for television and online news sources for many years.

Television viewers have zero choice in the matter - you either watch the broadcast later after recording it and fast-forwarding through commercials OR watch it live and deal with the commercials. Captive audience!
People "tolerate" online news advertisements - but my feeling is that people are tolerating them less and less. Thus the proliferation of AdBlock et al.
said by kpfx:

said by drew:

Virtually no one will pay for a subscription to an online news source. Some places have semi-paywalls, however people just look for alternative sources of the same information.

But people will pay for a subscription service if there is valuable content that you can't get elsewhere. Nobody will pay a subscription nowadays for a local newspapers that just reprints AP/Reuters articles and writes about a dozen local fluff pieces (which is what a majority of them do). However, news services such as the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are profitable because they actually have some quality research and reporting going into their content.

I know of no one that pays for an online-only subscription to any news source. This includes executive professionals and non-tech savvy folks. I'm not saying that no one does it, but I don't think it's gone that well for anyone. People will pay for the WSJ, but they're typically getting the print edition with the online as a bonus, or is that incorrect?
said by kpfx:

said by drew:

Now for my question... how does everyone propose that reporters get paid? You and I don't want to pay for it. The for-profit companies aren't interested in being unprofitable...

What's the plan here? Something's gotta give, right?

There's no reason the news industry can't survive on advertising and specialty subscription models (i.e. WSJ).

Gone is the old pre-internet newspaper model where a local shop would just put together AP/Reuters articles, write a dozen local articles pulled from the daily police report, cram it with ads and push it out the door for $1.50 each.

The "news" market will not disappear. What we're simply seeing is a local/regional print market that is over-saturated with suppliers when compared with the number of advertisers the market can support. We're already past the days when every city had two or three newspapers each, the trend just needs to continue until it finds balance. That's how free market works.

I have no issue with the "death" of local newspapers... they're almost completely useless, at least around here. However, where will the big guys find their reporting staff when their senior folks retire? People have to "cut their teeth" somewhere, right?

I still don't see forced advertisement online and/or paywalls as a viable source of profit for many news agencies.
drew

drew to Immer

Premium Member

to Immer
said by Immer:

I'd like to see the profession of journalism step back from being the "first to break the news" and return to fact-checking and closing up the headlines and viral videos.
*snip*
The news media could do with more analysts and fewer "reporters" in my opinion, especially given the mass group-think that goes on. *snip* I'd pay a monthly fee for credible analysis... but the industry hasn't demonstrated proficiency in this regard yet.

You value fact-checking. I'd wager that the large majority in this nation does not. Niche markets survive, but typically not at the level of, say the WSJ or NYT.

Someone will have to be the *first* to do this. They have to convince some investors that it's a good idea and I'm not sure we're there yet.

Exodus
Your Daddy
Premium Member
join:2001-11-26
Earth

1 recommendation

Exodus to drew

Premium Member

to drew
said by drew:

Now for my question... how does everyone propose that reporters get paid? You and I don't want to pay for it. The for-profit companies aren't interested in being unprofitable...

What's the plan here? Something's gotta give, right?

Why do reporters need to get paid? Why do we need to maintain the same volume of reporters and the same evolution of reporters? You've also made some assumptions here that need to be questioned. Are all news sources unprofitable? Is it possible that news agencies have failed to adapt their business models to the current demands of the people?

Taxation for news is not the answer. If there is no profit in news, eventually, no one will have news, right? Of course not. There is a demand for news and it requires the right innovators to come up with the appropriate business model for success. In 1840, 64% of the population were farmers. By 1990, less than 3% were farmers. Did we suffer an ultimate death in the agriculture industry? No. The world's economy evolves. People find new purpose. Industries learn how to become profitable. It is not up to you or I to figure out how to do it.

(Source: »www.agclassroom.org/gan/ ··· land.htm )

For as long as capitalism has been around, companies rise and fall. That is the nature of capitalism. Only recently have we decided that such a model is bad and failing businesses must be "bailed out" because we fear for the consequences.

We now pay more into corporate welfare than we do for personal welfare. We support failing businesses which no longer need to account for failure in their business model. Businesses no longer need to become efficient, innovate, or do anything right. They simply need to know how to acquire government assistance to keep their failed companies afloat

(Source: »thinkbynumbers.org/gover ··· tistics/ )

These companies should have failed. Would the demand for their products or services failed? No. Do people no longer need cars? Of course not. Our population is still growing and people still need private transportation to get to where they want. It'll just be provided by companies who can provide a product that people want at a price people are willing to pay.

But that's not how it works anymore. Now, companies will be bailed out. They can make bad decisions without consequences.

Corporate welfare is much more dangerous than social, personal welfare. With personal welfare, we can provide assistance to those who need it, but the rampant abuse means that productive members of society are leeching off of the rest of the people who work.

With the corporations having the ability to pay into politicians pockets with contributions, they can control which politicians can enter into the political arena. They can choose which ones survive and which ones get pushed out. Corporations can get billions of dollars and the politicians can get millions in return. The money comes from the tax payer.

Put enough people on personal welfare and you've absolutely disintegrated the middle class and small business. With corporate welfare, no one can rise out from the ashes, because new businesses cannot compete on innovation, service or lower prices. Corporations can lawyer them into oblivion.

Propping up newspapers is just another such symptom of this entire mess.
kxrm
join:2002-07-18
Fort Worth, TX

kxrm to drew

Member

to drew
said by drew:

said by ericthered26:

Nothing has "got to give." If no one wants the product newspapers are selling, then the reporters better find a new career.

So you're saying that you'd welcome the "death" of written journalism?

I don't think that is what he is saying, what he is saying is he welcomes the death of the current business models of written journalism. Eventually as people leave and an industry evaporates it will meet the supply needs of the current demand. There really is a lot of options for journalism now and therefore supply has breached demand.

We will never live in a world without journalism, but we can live in a world without large conglomerates and incumbent business models running journalism.

djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

djrobx to drew

Premium Member

to drew
said by drew:

said by ericthered26:

Nothing has "got to give." If no one wants the product newspapers are selling, then the reporters better find a new career.

So you're saying that you'd welcome the "death" of written journalism?

That's not the question. Why should taxpayers be forced to pay for something that people clearly don't feel is worth paying a small subscription fee for?

In the modern age of tablets and smartphones, the likelihood of "written journalism" dying out altogether is extremely low. If reporters are writing something truly compelling, people will buy a digital subscription for their Kindle/iPad/etc. They can also make money from ad revenue. If their product can't stand up to what the web generates for free, then yes, it should die.

They're seriously trying to argue that ad blocking is preventing them from being able to earn money from a website?
tanzam75
join:2012-07-19

tanzam75 to drew

Member

to drew
said by drew:

Now for my question... how does everyone propose that reporters get paid? You and I don't want to pay for it. The for-profit companies aren't interested in being unprofitable...

I don't think they can. Or at least, 80-90% of them cannot get paid for it.

Newspapers are trading analog dollars for digital dimes. They get 10x as much advertising revenue for a paper subscriber, than for a digital reader. Thus, even if a user pays for an online subscription, the newspaper is still well behind in terms of revenues.

Adaptation means something like what the Seattle PI did. They shut down the paper and became an online-only publication. But at the same time, they laid off 100% of their printing staff, and 80% of their reporting staff. In other words, they reduced their expenses to match the expected online revenues.

Sometimes, there's simply no easy way to adapt. You either shrink or die, and that's the end of the story. That's the nature of capitalism. It doesn't care how great a blacksmith you are -- interchangeable parts turned that profession into a niche.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd to drew

Premium Member

to drew
said by drew:

Yes, people hate advertisements, but people also tolerate them (up to a certain degree). The advertising model has worked for television and online news sources for many years.

I think the lack of QC from ad vendors really helped drive this, Adblock is now seen as not just a tool to stop those annoy rich media ads that mixed at double volume just like their TV counterparts. But it is seen as a security tool because ad vendors who are the ones that actually supply them have allowed people to push malware via ads(ie "Your computer is infected, click here to clean up now") that popup ad alone has caused many hours of tech support.

After dealing with that when I worked in tech support, after helping someone clean their PC I always directed them to Firefox and Adblock Plus.

drew
Radiant
Premium Member
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

drew to Exodus

Premium Member

to Exodus
You all failed to read my post, especially the introduction.

I'm not favoring taxation to subsidize (read: prop-up) the business model.

I'm asking for YOUR SOLUTION to the funding issue.

I agree 100% with Immer See Profile that they need to get back into the business of fact-checking and out of the business of tabloid sensationalism. However, are you willing to pay for that? What's the business model?

I'm interested in solutions, not posts telling me that "taxation isn't the solution." I'm not proposing it as one - leave that for another thread on this article.

Exodus
Your Daddy
Premium Member
join:2001-11-26
Earth

1 recommendation

Exodus

Premium Member

My solution to the newspaper funding issue is to sit on my hands and do nothing. Let them figure out how to survive and if they cannot, then I hope to see a new innovative business model come out of it.

I like the coupons, but those are becoming digital more and more as the time passes.

drew
Radiant
Premium Member
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

drew

Premium Member

That's a cop out answer

Everyone has an opinion on what's not the solution but nothing about what the solution is.

Exodus
Your Daddy
Premium Member
join:2001-11-26
Earth

Exodus

Premium Member

The solution is a series of micro-solutions by an unfathomable amount of sources. Decisions by each of the reporters to contribute better content and create a better product. Decisions by the management to direct their people to make a better product. Decisions by executive management to decide how to drive their business into a modern era. Decisions by the consumer on how they want to see their news and what types of news they want to see. Decisions by competitive news organizations to be innovative and attack outdated business models that cannot survive. The list goes on. The list of events that sways this one or another is what drives the economy, speculation, stock markets, etc. If we knew this information, we could make investments accordingly and profit heavily.

This is the "sit on my hands" solution that says we need not intervene. We simply need to sit back and observe. News isn't dying. A company is dying and it arrogantly thinks it is an industry when it is not. It can adapt, or die.

Oh_No
Trogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL

Oh_No to drew

Member

to drew
Their only way to get paid is advertisements like they do now for printed papers.
The vast majority of their money comes from advertisements.
The paper fee just covered the printing and delivery.

The real loss to them is classified and obituary fees, but that kind of has already happened.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory to drew

Member

to drew
Unfortunately, We've already seen that... The quality of writing as of late is hardly "journalism"; yes, it's written, but that's about all I can say about it.
LucasLee
join:2010-11-26

LucasLee to djrobx

Member

to djrobx
said by djrobx:

They're seriously trying to argue that ad blocking is preventing them from being able to earn money from a website?

it's pretty straight forward.
if your only source of revenue is from ad-space next to your content, and you're only paid for tracked views, or clicks on those ads, then anyone using software like ad-blocker is denying you revenue.

so, serious question: if pay-walls are not cool, and blocking ads is the default, how do they get paid at all?

SomeGusdfsay
@shawcable.net

SomeGusdfsay to drew

Anon

to drew
Simply put, as the consumer it is not up to us to find a solution. While I fully agree news is good (don't repeat history and all that) we are not the ones selling the product. Like any other business, it is up to the company to figure out how to make it viable. If I don't buy TV's anymore, it's not up to me to figure out how to make them profitable. Right now the company is trying various ideas, like paywalls, that are generally failing. Now they are trying to get subsidized and well, will fail as well. Time for them to figure out something new, not me.

Ctrl Alt Del
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18

Ctrl Alt Del to drew

Premium Member

to drew
said by drew:

I'm interested in solutions, not posts telling me that "taxation isn't the solution." I'm not proposing it as one - leave that for another thread on this article.

Here's just some random ideas I've cobbled up without any research, just throwing them out there. Ultimately it's their job to figure this out, not mine. But since you wanted some solutions, here's what comes to my mind.

- Improve the quality of your content and go behind a pay wall. Post the article online the day of the event, update the same article with new information (don't make a new one), then optionally post the fleshed out article on paper the next day. Maybe include comments from the website. This way you get the immediate newsflash online, then the researched article later.

- Tie in with social networking. Want to read our news? Link us with your Facebook profile. We'll get your info, but in return, we'll give you relevant location based stories. If you have your home and work address in Facebook and give that to us, we can intelligently give you your own personal traffic report. And here's your actual *LOCAL* news.

drew
Radiant
Premium Member
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

drew

Premium Member

I appreciate you at least trying to solve the problem.
zefie
join:2007-07-18
Hudson, NY

1 recommendation

zefie to kpfx

Member

to kpfx
Online ads would be tolerable if they were still small text or gif ads, and just 1 or 2.

Some small guys still do this but unfortunately their ads get blocked when someone installs adblock to block the 3, 4, 5... 20 flash/audio/video ads all over the place on some of the major sites with no respect for the internet. They are ugly, and slow down (and sometimes crash) users' browsers. Not to mention some of them even go as far as installing viruses into users' computers (for IE users.)

The problem gets accelerated by the new caps being introduced by ISPs. People don't want 30mB audio/video ads eating their already limited monthly bandwidth allocation.
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned) to Kearnstd

Member

to Kearnstd
said by Kearnstd:

I think the lack of QC from ad vendors really helped drive this, Adblock is now seen as not just a tool to stop those annoy rich media ads that mixed at double volume just like their TV counterparts. But it is seen as a security tool because ad vendors who are the ones that actually supply them have allowed people to push malware via ads(ie "Your computer is infected, click here to clean up now") that popup ad alone has caused many hours of tech support.

After dealing with that when I worked in tech support, after helping someone clean their PC I always directed them to Firefox and Adblock Plus.

DING DING DING!!!! WE HAVE A WINNAR!!!!!

Ad servers rarely check their ads and when it does infect a system, they turn a blind eye to it. That is the reason Ad Block is so valuable.
ericthered26
join:2011-09-29
Hamilton, OH

ericthered26 to drew

Member

to drew
It's not a cop out. It's truth. It's not our job to find a solution, we don't own a newspaper. I'm not even remotely worried about it, because I don't live in some fantasy land where some big newspaper fails and then somehow I never ever ever again get news.

And paying a tax to "save" them from the destruction they deserve if they can't create a product others want to PAY for, is outrageous.

It's awfully generous of you to offer your time and ideas to saving a failing business, but if they want mine..... I want a paycheck.

drew
Radiant
Premium Member
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA

drew

Premium Member



Typical news (be it local, national, tech, whatever) commenter attitude. Quick to berate an idea but has nothing to offer instead.