Is there a thread for the rapid death of the newspaper industry?

wasn't sure where to put this, so i'm putting it here. 1981 report on first attempts at getting the news online. feel a bit like sarah connor when she meets the guy who invented skynet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCTn4FljUQ

Evening Standard goes free from Monday: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/942719/

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/942719/London-Evening-Standard-become-free-circulation-paper/

The Standard's Russian owner Alexander Lebedev said his intention to make the paper available to a wider audience was for it to function as a "deterrent against corruption".

lol

It's been pretty much free for a while now anyway. Anytime I've been heading home later than about 8 in the past I've seen the same guys that give out other freesheets, only wearing yellow t-shirts instead of purple.

It was only free after 8pm because no fucker bought it after then. And it probably works out cheaper to pay guys to hand them out rather than pulp or landfill the leftover copies.

And some quick sums show that all those 50p sales add up to £32mn a year - does doubling its income from advertising cover that? I'd guess so.

The most important subset of numbers are 155 and 5. They refer to £155, the worth of an average reader to a paid-for newspaper a year in 2008. It breaks down to £90 a year from purchase price and £65 from advertising. Annual revenue from newspaper online totals just £5.

Standard going freesheet is unbelievably stupid of them right now, surely? Although presumably this will kill the London Lite with a stroke though?

Unbelievably stupid if Lebedev has any interest in running the paper as a "business". Which it's pretty clear he doesn't, right?

(rookie qn: presumably ad rates are much lower in free papers?)

wouldn't they be higher, with the presumed higher readership figures of a free sheet?

my guess is that advertisers are as concerned with quality (wealth) of readers as much as with quantity.

Not if you are just turning to freesheet. Presumably they'll drop the ad rates as low as they can to draw advertisers.

xp

“There are certain facts you can't argue with,” says one senior executive. “If the recession lasts too long, we will run out of money.”

In much the same way that they would support an author jailed on trumped-up charges in a distant failed state, Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and 50 other luminaries signed an open letter of support for the 218-year-old newspaper. At a subsequent public meeting in London, chaired by the comedian David Mitchell, 300 well-wishers included the actor Simon Callow, the broadcaster John Humphries and the film critic Barry Norman.

Wonder what a Venn diagram of this vs Roman Polanski campaigners looks like.

The end result:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y109/mozzer232/FATHER_TED_Down_with_this_sort_of_t.jpg

Not newspapers, but Conde Nast is closing Gourmet and Modern Bride.

this article is HILARIOUS

http://www.observer.com/2010/media/after-three-months-only-35-subscriptions-newsdays-web-site

in the "hysterical laughter that becomes hysterical crying" sense

It's totally misleading, too: most of their readers get it for free w/cable subscription so of course nobody's going to pay for it. (Also, isn't Newsday shit? Hardly news that it's tough to sell rubbish)

so why bother trying to charge for it if "most of their readers get it for free"?

to get $$ iirc

my times is thinking about it too: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21questions.html

The web site redesign and relaunch cost the Dolans $4 million, according to Mr. Jimenez. With those 35 people, they've grossed about $9,000.

so why bother trying to charge for it if "most of their readers get it for free"?
i'm sure there's a money deal in here somewhere: they'll be charging *somebody* for all these "free" subscriptions. Also "look, free access to our website (that's a $xx value, when you sign for x+y".

I mean, putting up the paywall isn't going to lose them any real money anyway. Drive-by web readers are worth bupkis in ad money terms.

Newsday was the only decent NY tabloid when they still published a city edition. I have been picking it up maybe 2x a week for the sports, but less often since street price went to $1.

lol

The Times and the Sunday Times are to start charging for content online in June.

Users will be charged £1 for a day's access and £2 for a week's subscription for access to both papers' websites, publisher News International has announced.

What I don't understand is what this means for people who buy the actual newspaper and then want to read the website. Pay twice?

£1? How much is the actual newspaper daily?

The Times and the Sunday Times are to start charging for content online in June

Shurely they're gonna have to generate some first?

who's shirley?

Think it's £1, but it's a long time since I last paid for a copy since there's always three copies lying around at work unread and because, hey, we have the internet.

Apparently they're expecting 60,000 people to pay each day. WTF?

Assume this is a ploy so's somebody can write a piece in July about why they only got 6 subscribers and how it's the BBC's fault.

Go to: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article7076987.ece - read the comments and try to find the one reader who says she'll pay for website access.

Quality in-depth interviewing from Eamonn Holmes on that article.

Mrs Brooks added that News International’s two other titles, The Sun and The News of the World, would follow.

Oh man I only just read this bit.

suicide. it's not like news won't appear on the net faster elsewhere, and probably better reported.

Probably?

i don't read anything in daily print but the irish times tbh. their website is free, but rte.ie replicates it just in case they change that. print edition still gonna be a purchase for me most days regardless.

so, i mean i have no idea what the standard of writing/comment is in your lefty propaganda sheets.

i did get landed with the sunday independent (irish version) on a train journey once, after the death of a socialite model. genuinely fucking painfully awful shit paper.

this is the standard the times is setting for its front page these days:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00701/TTH250101CC_RGB_701134a.jpg

sorry, btw.

i did get landed with the sunday independent (irish version) on a train journey once, after the death of a socialite model

just hide the spoon and lighter and say she was like that when you got there

i rate the irish times actually, i compared the news content vs a copy of the telegraph and the guardian and the proportion of ideologically purblind 'x says y, oh noes' crap was easily the lowest, most of the editorial and features content was at least as good too

they also get to crib the best articles out of other papers! (and kevin mccarra)

arah shure there's a week's reading itn the times fergawdshakes.

also, crosaire on his worst day has yet to be equalled

if this does fail dismally, and i can't see why it wouldn't, what will be the ultimate outcome for the times, the sun and news intnl? can we expect the guardian etc to mop up all the spare ad revenue?

and have the daily mail said anything about this? i'm always surprised how the mail have masses of content and high quality photos on there, aren't they leaking money by the shedload?

I don't know whether this actually makes a significant difference, but I'm guessing the Mail demographic probably buys more papers than, say, ones with a less pinched editorial target audience?

I'm guessing this will be the end of the road for Rupert, but not the News International papers. After six months it will be deemed a total failure, then Murdoch's kids and NI execs will use this failure to get rid of Dad, then it will all go free again.

The one thing I heard about as a potential way to make it work is to package it with the Sky tv deal (an extra fiver a month say gets you total access to all Times Online content). I've read others saying that while it fails the amount they've supposedly 'lost' will be used as an extra stat to beat the BBC with.

Really is difficult to see it succeeding tho.