On August 12 (Part 1) and 13 (Part 2) Bill Wyman, former arts editor of Salon.com and NPR, writes in Splice Today "Five Key Reasons Why Newspapers are Failing." The Five reasons are:
- Consumers don’t pay for news. They have never paid for news.
- Newspapers are the product of monopolist thinking.
- Timidity doesn’t work on the web
- The staffs of the papers, from management down to the reporters, deserve a big share of the blame
- Newspaper websites suck
One of the commentators Richard Hart, rightly points out: "I pay about $100 a year for a newspaper subscription, and around $400 a
year for the privilege of reading a few newspapers and blogs for free
on the Internets. It is a rule of thumb in the newspaper business that
the cost of a subscription is only about enough to pay for printing and
distribution. On the Web, those costs are vastly reduced--but
distribution is the only thing we're paying for, and we're paying more,
at that. As a result, the ISPs are able to make huge amounts of money
on the backs of free content. Why shouldn't they be paying the content
providers who make their services so attractive?"
I respond to Richard as follows:
BINGO Richard Hart, you are not alone. Consumer spending on isps, newspapers, movies, music, cable, wireless, etc. is higher than advertising (the lines crossed in 2004 according to investment firm, Veronis, Suhler, Stevenson).
In order for news as well as other traditional media brands
to get a share of that consumer
spending, they need to overcome all 5 hurdles outlined in this article.
Timidity is the place to start. By overcoming timidity, I don't mean more outrageous news reporting and content. I mean forget about moving the deck chairs around. For example, (with all due respect to richard who rightly recognizes the money left on the table by media brands) negotiating with ISPs, for a share of revenue, isn't a bold enough fix. (Just ask the networks, who only recently realized that they are missing out on juicy consumer dollars spent on cable, how they are doing in negotiating re-transmission fees from cable operators.)
Focus on point 5 - fix
websites to, as Al Neuhart says, make "news fit to buy."
And I add a point 6 - collaborate on a universal barter system that rewards the professional media as well as audience participants who contribute to the community.
With these steps accomplished, media brands can then overcome the reason for point 1 (consumers don't pay enough to fund news). The reason is, as Richard notices, because the distributors are keeping the money. Media didn't care as long as it was easier and very profitable to call on a few advertisers than to sell to lots of consumers. To reap their share of the consumer revenues, Media brands should seek to own the marketing role and share revs with the distributors (e.g., ISPS, wireless providers, Kindle, etc.) All will benefit because people will pay more in total by cherry picking than paying ISPs, wireless providers, cable, et al for the utility of browsing.
Once media brands have a direct relationship with their
consumers, problem 2 (Monopoly) will be overcome. When the consumer has the power, the media
will inherently be more transparent and straightforward. When consumers have
the power, they will not tolerate renegade amateurs on the comment page
(especially if you enable them to discriminate). The quality of both the content and consumer
participation will improve exponentially.
The opportunities to improve are really quite exciting. Hopefully we can stop defending what is and start focusing on these possibilities.
