Behind the Pay Wall?
An essay in the Columbia Journalism Review by David Simon is generating a lot of discussion for suggesting that The Washington Post and The New York Times should both, on Sept. 1, start charging for their news product online and no longer allow access for everyone for free. With those industry leaders charging a fee, other, smaller operations will be able to fall in line and start charging for their news, the piece asserts, as long as, after recent slashing of staff and news hole they still have enough original news for which people will pay. The Times and Post must act in concert, Simon asserts, because if one does and the other doesn’t the one who’s acted will suffer greatly. Simon, of course, is the award winning creator of of HBO series including The Wire, and a former journalist for The Baltimore Sun.
The essay comes after reports the Times is surveying the market to see if people will pay for access online -- perhaps $5 per month -- or even go after foundation funding, much like NPR. The new venture Journalism Online is planning to give many publishers a way to charge for at least a portion of their content. Well-known magazine editor Evan Smith recently announced he was joining The Texas Tribune, a not-for-profit venture funded by a venture capitalist to cover the state's politcs and government.
It’s being shown that advertising, alone, cannot support even a large news operation with the kinds of cost structures of the Times and Post. And even some very well-trafficked smaller blogs run by only one or two people don’t make enough from their ads to, alone, support the person(s) writing them. The Wall Street Journal is mentioned in the piece as charging subscriptions, but Chris Anderson, the author of the new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” which heralds the opposite movement, points out that the Journal is actually a hybrid model. You can get a lot of the paper’s product for free online, but must subscribe if you want it all, especially the financial news -- something Simon’s piece does acknowledge.
The discussion may seem esoteric but is relevant for the core audience of this site, a journalist or entrepreneur launching a hyper-local and/or niche site that will never get the millions of monthly unique users and hundreds of millions of pageviews of a New York Times or Washington Post. If consumers do believe they must pay for quality original content, that may make them more amenable to the idea of paying you -- or at least an aggregation service in which you take part and get a cut, for at least part of the site. Until then, you may have to use a mixed revenue model, such as the ones we’ve been exploring on this network and on our wiki. You may have to be very judicious in placing ads, and understanding the mix of other potential revenue streams. But anyone who says they have the model that will work for you is either deeply informed of your audience and cost structures and has a wide swathe of understanding how to put it all together -- or they’re probably delusional or trying to sell you a bill of goods. Anyone who says one model fits all is, well, wrong. But it pays to look at the models that are evolving and ask the right questions.
The essay comes after reports the Times is surveying the market to see if people will pay for access online -- perhaps $5 per month -- or even go after foundation funding, much like NPR. The new venture Journalism Online is planning to give many publishers a way to charge for at least a portion of their content. Well-known magazine editor Evan Smith recently announced he was joining The Texas Tribune, a not-for-profit venture funded by a venture capitalist to cover the state's politcs and government.
It’s being shown that advertising, alone, cannot support even a large news operation with the kinds of cost structures of the Times and Post. And even some very well-trafficked smaller blogs run by only one or two people don’t make enough from their ads to, alone, support the person(s) writing them. The Wall Street Journal is mentioned in the piece as charging subscriptions, but Chris Anderson, the author of the new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” which heralds the opposite movement, points out that the Journal is actually a hybrid model. You can get a lot of the paper’s product for free online, but must subscribe if you want it all, especially the financial news -- something Simon’s piece does acknowledge.
The discussion may seem esoteric but is relevant for the core audience of this site, a journalist or entrepreneur launching a hyper-local and/or niche site that will never get the millions of monthly unique users and hundreds of millions of pageviews of a New York Times or Washington Post. If consumers do believe they must pay for quality original content, that may make them more amenable to the idea of paying you -- or at least an aggregation service in which you take part and get a cut, for at least part of the site. Until then, you may have to use a mixed revenue model, such as the ones we’ve been exploring on this network and on our wiki. You may have to be very judicious in placing ads, and understanding the mix of other potential revenue streams. But anyone who says they have the model that will work for you is either deeply informed of your audience and cost structures and has a wide swathe of understanding how to put it all together -- or they’re probably delusional or trying to sell you a bill of goods. Anyone who says one model fits all is, well, wrong. But it pays to look at the models that are evolving and ask the right questions.
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