The Future of Newspaper: A dime, a nickel, or two dollar
Time has published a great piece by Walter Isaacson, How to Save Your Newspaper, a former TIME managing editor offers a way to return journalism to prosperity. Regarding to the crisis of papar-based press, we saw recent awakening of giant publishers on their problems.
There is, However, a striking and somewhat odd fact about this crisis. Newspapers have more readers than ever. Their content, as well as that of newsmagazines and other producers of traditional journalism, is more popular than ever — even (in fact, especially) among young people.
True. I’d love to read true journalism report than blog post, if there is such alternative.
Henry Luce, a co-founder of TIME, disdained the notion of giveaway publications that relied solely on ad revenue. He called that formula “morally abhorrent” and also “economically self-defeating.” That was because he believed that good journalism required that a publication’s primary duty be to its readers, not to its advertisers. In an advertising-only revenue model, the incentive is perverse. It is also self-defeating, because eventually you will weaken your bond with your readers if you do not feel directly dependent on them for your revenue.
Really good exaplained argument. I believe the press should be that too. Tough the practise of free content seems normal, but that doesn’t make sense for journalism industries.
So are there any good solutions? How journalism could sustain as a business, as we need them for our information needs.
Currently a few newspapers, most notably the Wall Street Journal, charge for their online editions by requiring a monthly subscription. When Rupert Murdoch acquired the Journal, he ruminated publicly about dropping the fee. But Murdoch is, above all, a smart businessman. He took a look at the economics and decided it was lunacy to forgo the revenue — and that was even before the online ad market began contracting. Now his move looks really smart. Paid subscriptions for the Journal’s website were up more than 7% in a very gloomy 2008.
It is indeed good solution. But that’s likely good for those specialized publishers (like WSJ) whose readers base are very bonded to the content, not so like to general newspaper.
The key to attracting online revenue, I think, is to come up with an iTunes-easy method of micropayment. We need something like digital coins or an E-ZPass digital wallet — a one-click system with a really simple interface that will permit impulse purchases of a newspaper, magazine, article, blog or video for a penny, nickel, dime or whatever the creator chooses to charge.
That was what I thought before.
Steve Jobs got music consumers (of all people) comfortable with the concept of paying 99 cents for a tune instead of Napsterizing an entire industry, and Jeff Bezos with his Kindle showed that consumers would buy electronic versions of books, magazines and newspapers if purchases could be done simply.
We all got inspired to Apple’s success. Exactly.
Under a micropayment system, a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel ($0.05) for an article or a dime ($0.01) for that day’s full edition or $2 for a month’s worth of Web access. Some surfers would balk, but I suspect most would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough.
This is seems a good and fair solutions. Tough it has their cons, as I the reader feels following it. We are enjoying a really freedom of press, and emphasizes the free word. And this situation are creating a wealth of massive information source to every side of the world. If this situation is reserved, following the condition such publishers have, it would be a giant shock.
So here are my ideas:
- As a reader from developing countries, I suggest those giant publishers create a different pricing schemes for developing countries. This will reduced the possibility of pirated version as if everyone sees it affordable, they might go buy it legally.
- Create another some alternative ways of payment system. Most people in developing countries didn’t have credit card. May be they want to spend buying for good content. Since the publishers didn’t give an easy way for them, they might ended up for pirated version. It’s true. It’s happen to music industries, or movies industries.
- May be you could joining with local publishers to get a scheme of buy one for two. Average local paper subscription are $6 per month. And newspaper local industries seems having a same problem. So imagine I can subscribe to Kompas, local Jakarta-based national newspaper (and the most circulated in country), and I got free NYTimes online subscription.
- Create a wealth of good system of ownership. I wonder when you bought a piece of article, that’s become yours forever. Even in such reality, your paper will be useless after a month, and you might ended up trash it. But, good ownership of digital contents will create a reward to those who bought it. It’s a different world than paper edition.
- Create a good ecosystem with the same publishers who takes this way, so readers enjoy the benefit. Imagine if NYTimes, Wall Street and other publishers has same platform for their paid contents. We could ended up with a great virtual library of our own purchased digital content, so we can retrieve it easily, cataloging it, tagging, search, clippings, or arrange as far as we want.
- I suggest an idea of reduced pricing scheme as the time of published materials getting older. Imagine if we could buy up-to-1 months ago edition for let’s say 50% of normal subscription fee. Or, we could buy up-to-3 months ago editions for 20%, More than 3 months will end up to 10%, and a year more for free. It would go really cheap, but for everyone who sees fit to read such materials, they will end up to buy it.
- So, if press going to be paid-based, how’s the future of free press? How’s the future of blogging and citizen commentary, as we can easily linking to original sources we are debating over since not everyone possibly can read it anymore? Well, it depends on the planning of above ecosystem. Maybe there will be another outlet so everyone can read it free, but they have ads, and the content is can’t be copied. If blogger like me want to quote it, we should do it manually by typing it or we could copy-paste after we bought it (for a really, really cheap), we can pay it for a dime or reduced pricing (see idea below) if it was an older piece or getting it really free if it a year later.
Sure I like to read free content, as well as a very personal blogosphere contents. But for me, I still like to read good reportage. Even some readers comments of Time article opposed the idea, everyone would be as they would ended up pay for something they usually got it free.
I love to read good journalism. I usually got it from good reputable publishers, that’s why I subscribed to paper-edition of Wired, Time, and one local paper. Sure I can read it online, as always. As to Wired, I like more to read Wired paper edition, as I can saw their great and unique design. Or, when the Time arriving at my door, it always such be an enjoy moment to have it (and read it by the next hours).
I want press to be sustainable. What’s your idea?
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