Independent Newspapers phasing in pay-per-view websites?

My local newspaper, The Kerryman (owned by Independent Newspapers) has today announced that while archives and some local info on its website will remain free, articles, editorials, sports etc will become pay-per-view "premium content" and will be subject to a choice of payment options. Of course, should this strategy prove successful, the incentive would then exist to phase this over all Independent-owned titles, so the most effective way to defeat this threat to freedom of information is not to buy INM-owned regional, daily or Sunday newspapers until the idea is scrapped.

You'd think they'd have learned from the Irish Times that this isn't going to work. If anything, the paywall should be the other way around: make the daily content free, and charge a small fee for archive research. Not that I'd read anything from O'Reilly's stable anyway.

There was an article last year that said most main news sites,cnn,skynews,fox news,bbc etc are altering their websites so that most content will be premium and only available by subscription.It also said newspaper sites will follow suit.It's meant to be done by the end of this year apparently but no real sign of it yet.I agree that its a huge mistake on their part to do this.

The only way news paywalls can work is if everybody does it, and that would result in massive antitrust investigations. And a completely crap web, for that matter.

As a publisher of sorts myself I'm in favour of paid-for content, but I can't see a news paywall in the short to medium term. The news will just be republished by the same people that rip DVDs and CDs. It's a no-duh thing that, incredibly, the likes of Maxwell still don't get.

I had a mind to buy the Sunday Business Post last Sunday, just never got round to it. That evening, I went online and read the 3 or 4 articles in which I was interested. For free. How can they put it online for free and expect to survive in the long run?
I notice the Phoenix has no online content at all.

It's not strictly free monutdfc, they don't charge an upfront fee but they still place ads around the content. In print editions they earn more from the ads than from the cover price - which is why they distribute thousands of copies for free - although as far as I can remember it's actually classified ads that earn the most revenue for most papers.

The problem is that web advertising is less effective, because people's attention span is shorter, and because they block ads. I think publishers need to start a campaign to ask their users to support their sites by disabling adblockers on them; I'll be doing it here shortly, in fact. It's as simple as this:

http://foot.ie/images/local/disable.png

The Phoenix did post content the last time I looked, but it was only a few lead articles, and I don't think they were textual. I think they're flushing money down the toilet by not putting their content online, it would be an awesome research tool that people would pay good money to access. Minimal costs too, you could knock up a website in a week for it, and an intern could handle all of the scanning and/or OCR.

adam

Most of the ads you see on these websites are freebies. The publishing media have yet to find a way of making money from their websites apart from collecting subscriptions for the printed matter. Murdock is going to start charging for his online content and its only a matter of time before they all do it.

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Originally Posted by drummerboy

Most of the ads you see on these websites are freebies. The publishing media have yet to find a way of making money from their websites apart from collecting subscriptions for the printed matter. Murdock is going to start charging for his online content and its only a matter of time before they all do it.

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Depends on the service. Murdoch's "jewel" is the Wall Street Journal which people/businesses will subscribe to as they can't get that material elsewhere.

As dahamsta said the Irish Times have actually moved the opposit way and looked to free up content. The usccesful media outlets are those who are able to tailor heir content to the medium. (ie don't just put your newspaper text on screen, make it interactive, make it easy to read on the screen...)

It really is incredible how badly traditional newspapers handled the transition to the internet because a) they did't want to know about it b) they didn't know how to monetise their webpresence and c) they overestimated people's atachment to a physical newspaper

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Originally Posted by drummerboy

Most of the ads you see on these websites are freebies.

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(I've worked in this area of the media industry.) While it can't be denied that a lot of web advertising is in-house or trade, I've seen the revenues from post-agency overlap advertising (like Google AdSense), and it's not to be sneezed at. As well as that, you have to remember that a freebie sounds cheaper than it is. Cross-promotion is very valuable.

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Originally Posted by Dodge

As dahamsta said the Irish Times have actually moved the opposit way and looked to free up content.

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The latest from the IT is their announcement that they're going to start charging for content again, but when the newmeeja jumped on it like squealing pigs, they pointed out that it was one of these "online newspaper" style things they were talking about.

adam

The new Times e-paper is pretty good (it almost completely replicates the content and format of the hard copy, including supplements etc.). I'm in the middle of the two week free trail, but I'd actually consider paying for it, particularly if the e-reader version is as good.