Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Media Gannett to Implement Paywall
Posted by Jonathan Meador on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:15 PM
It's finally come to this.
Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, is planning to switch over all of its 80 community newspapers to a paid model by the end of the year, it announced during an investor day held in Manhattan Wednesday.“We will begin to restrict some access to non-subscribers,” said Bob Dickey, president of community publishing. The model is similar to the metered system adopted by The New York Times a year ago, in which online readers are able to view a limited number of pages for free each month. That quota will be between five and 15 articles, depending on the paper, said Dickey. Six Gannett papers already have a digital pay regimen in place.
There is one Gannett title, however, that will remain free, at least for the foreseeable future: USA Today. Gannett CEO explained that decision as a matter of priorities, noting that USA Today is in the midst of overhauling its website to create a user experience more similar to that of an iPad app.
I shudder at the thought that, by year's end, we'll have to pay to read Gail Kerr's columns.
However, while paying a premium for premium news content à la The New York Times makes sense, will news consumers pay a premium for the decidedly non-premium product that the Gannett Co. churns out of its atrophied regional news organs as the company's executives give themselves bonuses for razing the fourth estate? What say you?
Comments (15)
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New business model: If you can't give it away, charge for it?
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So basically I will have to pay to look at pop-up ads and recycled USA Today content? Fail.
This reflects the problems of Capitalism for sure. People shouldn't have to pay for news. Revenue from advertising has kept newspapers going for decades... only greed led to this decision, not necessity. Luckily we have enough independent news outlets now like you good folks that I don't find myself reading much of anything from the Gannett spectrum. They've gutted the Leaf-Chronicle here in Clarksville to the point that even Tennessee State issues are represented by AP releases... pitiful.
So they'll have a pay print edition and a pay online edition that both suck. What a winning combination.
Fact is that for the last 40 years, no more than 25% of people ever read newspapers. They're gonna lose all the online people that they gained in the last ten years. But since they could never monetize those people that they "gained", it seems not to matter. They'll probably just sign up some portion of the 25% newspaper audience that cancelled their print subscription cause they could get it online for free. It is a smart move. The last ten years have been a totally anomoly... The maximum EVER circulation of the NYT was 1.2 million in a city of 9 million and a country of 300 million. Papers will just shrink down to their original audience but finally make money again
My aunt just called the funeral homes every morning to find out who died.
Slanted and opinion news in print or "Reality show"-scripted news stories on TV!
While the internet gives us lots of options, true, unbiased, one decent source for
news is a thing of the past!
"However, while paying a premium for premium news content à la The New York Times makes sense,......"
"Premium" news content?
Ha ! Ha! Ha!
Now that's funny.
LOL - goodbye, Tennessean! no one will want to pay to listen to Gail's inane ramblings.
My office gets a couple of copies of the Tennessean every morning. It's there for anyone to read. Many days no one does. Sometimes I have arrived at work to find that ten people got there ahead of me and they all walked past those copies of Tennessean on the sidewalk without even bothering to pick them up and bring them inside. When people have free access to the print edition and don't read it, what are the odds that they're going to pay for what I suspect will be an inferior online edition?
I find it's very difficult to wrap fish in the online edition without cutting my hands on broken monitor glass.
Other Scott: Y'all are counted in the circulation numbers anyway. #Ad rates
Sorry, but you have it all wrong.
I respond as one of THE TENNESSEAN's best customers. That is to say, I am a daily and Sunday paid print subscriber and have been for years. (I should be comped, but that's a different story...)
If you don't subscribe to THE TENNESSEAN, then I have been subsidizing your "free" online access. That's just not right. (If online advertising paid the bills there would be no paywall- assuming greed is not involved, but if greed is involved I hope a non-Gannett-affiliated investigative reporter is on the case.)
Yet, I am hardly defending THE TENNESSEAN. Since the NASHVILLE BANNER folded, THE TENNESSEAN has done nothing but take advantage of its monopoly (sorry, NASHVILLE CITY PAPER- you're a good read, but I can't get home delivery and you're no longer a daily paper so, in those terms, you're only minimal competition).
The result is a paper that has steadily lost its prestige despite, historically, some very good and hard-working reporters who, unfortunately, don't make policy.
Ironically, paid subscriber that I am, I can no longer post my reactions to THE TENNESSEAN's content on its Web site since I refuse to join Facebook. I hope that changes with the paywall.
If a true competitor arose tomorrow I would drop my TENNESSEAN subscription in a heartbeat, paywall or not. I only support the newspaper financially because I know what I would be reading in THE NASHVILLE SCENE, THE NASHVILLE CITY PAPER, THE NASHVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL and THE NASHVILLE POST and seeing on Channels 2, 4, 5, and 17's newscasts if it, too, folded. The thought is enough for me to remain a seven-day subscriber until price increases make that choice unsustainable or until some angel investor wants to fund a really good Nashville daily newspaper, complete with book reviews, a real TV (and radio) section, a larger business section and real music business news.
Stacy Harris
Publisher/Executive Editor/Media Critic
Stacy's Music Row Report
http://stacyharris.com
