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This is why your newspaper is dying

bradcolbow.com

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Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#2
Only thing missing in this is the local newspapers lacking local news point. I honestly don't read the St Paul Pioneer Press for reviews on the iPad - there are much more relevant places for me that information from more intelligent sources. I read the local paper to know what's happening locally.

Can you imagine a newspaper without any AP stories in it? So clean. So relevant. So free of redundancy from the kind of information I already digested 12 hours earlier... Excuse me while I go get a scissors and get to work.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#3
post #2

Only thing missing in this is the local newspapers lacking local news point. I honestly don't read the St Paul Pioneer Press for reviews on the iPad - there are much more relevant places for me that information from more intelligent sources. I read the local paper to know what's happening locally. Can you imagine a newspaper without any AP stories in it? So clean. So relevant. So free of redundancy from the kind of i…

Except that producing your own stories is more expensive (unless you want to hire middle schoolers), and you need something to put in the space between the advertisements. I agree that a newspaper that actually fills its niche well is desirable, but it's unfortunately a tough business model.

Frankly, I kind of suspect that local news will eventually be dominated by passionate bloggers. They don't have the overhead that a newspaper does, so they can deal with smaller budgets. Every community in my area has at least one local blog, and honestly, they're great for local news.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#4
This is a red herring. The New York Times is "dying" too, but (other than not linking outside the site, which is of debatable consequence to site revenue), it doesn't do any of these things.

This is mainly a list of one person's pet peeves, asserted to be the reason that newspapers are hurting. I have another theory: the advertising market for newsprint is being decimated. The pop-unders and massive ads are probably the only thing keeping your local newspaper alive.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#5
A major problem is that print editions have a comparatively high production and distribution cost, but newspapers can charge more for advertising. As readers shift to online editions, the distribution cost is minimal, but the savings are dwarfed by the loss of advertising revenue, since internet ads cost much less. Of course, they try to counter this by peppering the pages with ads, which leads to about half the problems that this piece describes.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#6
This is really only the beginning of a list. Most newspapers don't realize it yet but its getting pointless for them to even publish national and world news.

Most twenty somethings i know never read the newspaper. Yet as they buy houses and have kids they develop an intense interest in local news about their community. The company that gets local right will be the new Hearst of this era. I am pretty sure it won't be one of the giants like Gannett.

Right now I learn as much local news on Twitter as I do the local daily newspaper I read every morning.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#8
post #2

Only thing missing in this is the local newspapers lacking local news point. I honestly don't read the St Paul Pioneer Press for reviews on the iPad - there are much more relevant places for me that information from more intelligent sources. I read the local paper to know what's happening locally. Can you imagine a newspaper without any AP stories in it? So clean. So relevant. So free of redundancy from the kind of i…

[deleted]

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#9
post #4

This is a red herring. The New York Times is "dying" too, but (other than not linking outside the site, which is of debatable consequence to site revenue), it doesn't do any of these things. This is mainly a list of one person's pet peeves, asserted to be the reason that newspapers are hurting. I have another theory: the advertising market for newsprint is being decimated . The pop-unders and massive ads are probably…

The NYTimes is actually profitable again.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#10
post #4

This is a red herring. The New York Times is "dying" too, but (other than not linking outside the site, which is of debatable consequence to site revenue), it doesn't do any of these things. This is mainly a list of one person's pet peeves, asserted to be the reason that newspapers are hurting. I have another theory: the advertising market for newsprint is being decimated . The pop-unders and massive ads are probably…

Just wanted to point out that with the recent New York Times second-quarter results, the growing consensus is that the NYT has turned a corner: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/26/the-nyt-pay...

I don't think it's fair to say that the NYT is "dying" at this point. Here's how New York Magazine put it just this week:

"It will take years for the ultimate wisdom of the Times’ strategy to be apparent, but the company’s second-quarter-earnings report proves that its digital-subscription plan has thus far been an enormous success. The internal projections have been closely held, but several people have confirmed that the goal was to amass 300,000 online subscribers within a year of launch. On Thursday, the company announced that after just four months, 224,000 users were paying for access to the paper’s website. Combined with the 57,000 Kindle and Nook readers who were paying for subscriptions and the roughly 100,000 users whose digital access was sponsored by Ford’s Lincoln division, that meant the paper had monetized close to 400,000 online users. (Another 756,000 print subscribers have registered their accounts on the Times’ website.)"

"With the exception of websites charging for sports statistics, financial data, and porn, that makes nytimes.com one of the very few content providers that is monetizing its users"

http://nymag.com/print/?/news/media/new-york-times-2011-8/

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