On the MediaShift Idea Lab site, Chris O'Brien writes that community building is the core business of journalism. He implies this should be free. Future of Local News About More Than Paid Content. I think he is in fact on to the core reason to pay for media:
As background, I think there is too much defending the
status quo and not enough curiosity about what will improve the market.
I am amazed that any business, including news, would approach a new delivery vehicle by offering their product for free first and then figuring out how to make money later or by banking on a 3rd party (e.g., advertisers) to fund it. The most sustainably profitable businesses sell and collect money directly from their consumers - they know when the product isn't delivering or their sales tactics don't work, and what they need to do to be more competitive.
Television and radio had no choice but the free/ad supported
business model. There was no way to
collect money from consumers. Now they
are scrambling to re-negotiate re-transmission consent deals with cable
providers to get their share of the consumer purchase pie because it has grown
to be bigger than the ad revenue pie. If the guys who succeeded with the
FREE/ad support model are scrambling to shift to paid, why would anyone
conclude that FREE is a good model to emulate?
So you probably aren't surprised that I disagree with your conclusion that consumers never paid for the news. But I agree with your conclusion that media value comes from its power to contribute to individuals who are community builders.
Your analysis may be correct that consumer subscriptions are
not enough to cover the costs to publish the news. But consumers perceive they
"pay." Importantly, look at
the reasons subscribers cancel paid subscriptions - isn't it because they think
the writing is too biased and don't trust it any longer?
There was a time when subscriptions paid for the news and advertising was "icing on the cake." The day the news, and media in general, became dependent upon advertising to survive financially, is the day media's value to consumers began to erode. And this is also the time, maybe not coincidentally, that advertising's ROI disappeared.
I agree with you that news, and media in general, have a lot to contribute to sense of community. In fact, I think news should get back to providing the service of arming individual community builders with the ammunition to galvanize community - by providing reliably unbiased, fact-based reporting. The media who position themselves a source one can trust will be paid enough by subscribers to be more selective in their choice of advertisers. Maybe then, ad ROI may resume as well.
