in an instance of the increasing importance of web-based readers, the
'economist' magazine has now made its entire print content available
for free on the net. in addition they have a fair amount of web-only
material as well.
very interesting. how does this change their business model? after
all, their subscription prices are quite high, like $150/year or so.
is the economist saying the print newspaper is dead?
what are the implications for those of us who are web-media enthusiasts?
5 comments:
Well actually you do have to see the advert before you get to the content (or at least I did).
For long the revenue glue that held traditional media together was - in decreasing order of importance
1- Advertising (for newspapers and magazines)
2- Classified ad's (for newspapers)
3- Subscription (more for magazines than for newspapers)
Advertising and subscriptions start evaporating in a mutually reinforcing way due to aggregators such as Google News. I mean as long as get to read what is happening, does it matter which paper it is from? Or put the question another way - how much would you pay to read the same news (news NOT opinion) from your favoured newspaper? I guess - not much. Folks like craigslist have already robbed them of classifieds.
It must be noted that by making you watch an ad - the Economist has not lost out on Glue Number 1 (advertising). In the long term here is the prediction
1- Newspapers will lose: They have to put up news bureaus and hire reporters all of which is expensive. Unless you have a really mighty brand (NYT) you may not be able to charge for content. You are stuck with the expense and without the revenue.
If the means of production (a communist term) for capturing news content also proliferates; papers can start buying content of “citizen journalists”, or AP reporters as opposed hiring their own reporters. The days of the news Bounty Hunter!!!
2- Magazines, especially ones that offer opinion and analysis type of content will go online and charge for content or attract targeted advertisers (or both): If you have something to say and an interesting way of saying it; chances are people will pay a bit of money to hear it.
They will benefit from the mob mentality of intellectuals.
If you are a conservative, you will pay the Weekly Standard to tell you how intellectually smart conservatives (i.e. you) are. They will attract all the conservative readers and adverts of insurance companies; investment brokers and accountants.
On the other hand if you are a liberal – you will pay the New Republic to tell you how emotionally sensitive liberals (i.e. you) are. They will also get all the adverts for tampons, deep discount coupons (most liberals like the idea of poverty) and organic, bird friendly coffee.
Magazines have expenses related to maintaining research staff etc., which they will cut by moving a lot of that back-end stuff to – well – India
3- TV & radio will win - again and again and again – there is nothing like visual news for the addicted. TV can customise itself to the “idiot” who wants entertainment rolled up as news program; the “regular” by dishing out plain, bland news and “curious” by offering opinion pieces and interviews etc.
Alas – all this is very far way in India where web penetration is low and the liberal print media of the ELM variety will carry on.
This is excellent news, my subscription just came up for renewal .
Heh, perhaps the Atlanticists are realizing that if they're going to dole out the propaganda to the most people, then they'd better make it free.
Ghost Writer,excellent analysis!
This brings up a subject that I feel strongly about - we keep hoping for a more fair and balanced media group - that is going to take a long time to happen if it ever does.
In the meantime we need to come up with creative ways to hit the psec media where it hurts. Here are some ideas I came up with
1. Craigslist has sites for several cities in India Please Please encourage everyone you know in India to use Craigslist for buying and selling stuff - avoid any desi papers (except Pioneer)
Also take a look at angies List (it is like craigslist for services) If there is enough traffic on craigslist for the Indian cities we could encourage angieslist to set up sites for India)
2. Encourage all your relatives to read their newspaper on the Internet (if they cannot let go of their addiction to their favorite paper) and stop the print subscription.
3. If you know any IT company owners please encourage them to advertise for jobs online or through middlemen - instead of newspapers (this might be harder to implement)
Add whatever ideas you can add here - but lets bring down the leftist control over the Indian media - one small step at a time.
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