It’s a question as old as the newspaper industry.
Why should we give away our content?
As community newspapers face a new age of competition from the Internet, the question has become more relevant. For many of us, we have effectively been “giving it away” for years as local radio and television stations get their cues from our newspapers and crib the stories for their own use.
My argument for an active website is not “giving away” the content, but shifting the cost to the advertiser instead of the subscriber. Look that this question: “Which would I rater do, sell you a subscription for $35 a year, or sell an advertiser a daily ad on my Web site for $35 a week?” The math is simple: $35 a year from the subscriber or $1,820 a year from the advertiser.
I am convinced that once your webset “catches on” with the community, you can easily sell more than one ad for your daily news update. The site will be especially attractive during political season when local candidates want their names and pictures before the public every day — not just once or twice a week in your newspaper. And that is all cash business — a tremendous boost to your cash flow. Ask your advertising sales staff to work up “combination” packages for your print and Internet additions and it will result in “plus revenue” for your newspaper.
Why don’t you try it sometime? An election is a good opportunity. For the May 9 local city council and school board elections, put a house ad in your newspaper saying that you will have “live, up to the minute” election returns on your Web site. Ask an influential business leader — the local Ford dealer, a community bank, your hospital or the Dairy Queen — to be the “sponsor” of the live coverage. Make the price attractive, say $100.
After all, you won’t have those results in your weekly paper for four or five days. Even though you have shared the results with your readers on the Internet, your newspaper coverage can be fresh with interviews with the winners and losers as well as great photo coverage of the “courthouse stand-arounds” in the county clerk’s office on election night.
It’s an experiment worth trying — I think you’ll be very pleased with the results.