One of the more interesting online news ventures in the nation is happening right here in Texas. It’s an online-only news site that was launched as a non-profit organization. It’s called the Texas Tribune, and it’s funded by readers who donate to keep alive what they consider a worthy cause. The editor is Evan Smith, former editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly. You can check out the new site at texastribune.org. And even if you don’t go there, look at what promises to be a regular feature on that site – using animation and pop-ups to insert everything from humor to fact-checking to background information into a speech, inserted during the speech itself. Currently, the “victim” is Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson. You can see the “stump interrupted” concept on the Texas Tribune site, or access it directly from YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAUUw4NrKkE.
Author: Kathryn Jones Malone
Kathryn Jones Malone is co-director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism. She began her career as a staff writer at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, then worked as a staff writer for the Dallas Times Herald and The Dallas Morning News; as a contract writer for The New York Times; as a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly magazine; as editor of the Glen Rose Reporter; and as a freelance writer for numerous state, regional and national magazines. She teaches journalism at Tarleton State University.
Two news items about our business from last week:
- Circulation is down. Big-time. Average weekday circulation has dropped nearly 11 percent, the sharpest decline in years. And the big guys are hurting the most: Nearly two-thirds of the 25 largest papers in the U.S. posted circulation declines of 10 percent or more.
- Despite the drop in circulation, or maybe because of it, the buzz in corporate offices is still about how to charge for content. More publishers, it seems, are determined to make news consumers pay for what they’ve been getting up to now for free. But despite the conversation about the need for pay walls, and no lack of proposals about how to make them work, publishers realize that erecting pay walls only drives away readers.
About the only pay-wall ideas with traction now are the ones that involve charging not for the basic news content of the paper, but for supplemental content.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, for instance, has a free site but charges $19.95 a year for premium coverage of the Minnesota Vikings — a plan similar the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Packer Insider coverage.
The Wall Street Journal Online uses a model now being talked about in Texas newsrooms — offering some free content, but only teasing a lot of major pieces, which will require a subscription. The magazine Consumer Reports uses much the same approach.
The issues here, of course, are that these are highly specialized media. WSJ is the last word in business and financial coverage, and CR is best known for its product reviews. Neither — at least of that quality and reputation — is available free on the Web and gathered in one site.
Some newspapers have even offered up as a model iTunes, which lets the consumer pay for individual music downloads. Newspapers, some publishers say, could offer news downloads in the same way. Of course, downloaded music can be played again and again, and you don’t typically see news and opinion being read over and over.
And perhaps the Internet’s best example of pay-for-specialized-content is the one type of content that (until social media came along) was most prevalent online: pornography. But even with porn, you can now get pretty much all the smut you want for free, and profits for purveyors of porn have plummeted. [Sorry; some alliterations are just too good to pass up.]
Lauren Fine, research director for ContentNext Media, believes that newspapers are going to have to realize that they cannot charge for most types of news:
“[Newspapers] have to think a little more creatively about what people will pay for, what they find of value, but core news in and of itself still feels like there’s so much available that it will be hard to get people to pay,” Fine said.
The analyst believes newspapers are going to have to think out of the box to come up with the types of content people will pay for on their Web sites:
“If I’m a local newspaper, maybe I can’t get you to pay for the content, but I could create a real estate service that says you’re going to be one of 25 people who receive the first alert that a new home is available,” she said.
The real question, of course, is what kind of content the reader will be willing to pay for. One blogger put it like this in a series of questions we must all eventually ask ourselves: “What value are you providing that makes it worth paying you? That’s the question I keep asking. Newspaper folks seem to think that their content is magically so valuable that everyone will start paying if they charge. There’s no evidence that’s true at all. So what value are they adding beyond all the other content out there that makes it worth actually paying for?”
That’s the dilemma. The staff of the Center is following this issue, so you keep following the blogs and Around the Web features here, and we’ll report the newest trends and experiments in ways to charge for premium content.
OK, admit it. You’ve never even thought of parodying the Associated Press Stylebook. But these guys (one from Texas) did, and the result is often hilarious. Written in the same tone as the “real” stylebook, this Twitter feed provides a great newsroom break. And it shows again the power of the Net—three weeks ago it didn’t exist, and now it has 40,000 followers. And that’s more than the AP Stylebook has.
A new National Newspaper Association survey has yielded some results that will be useful for advertising salespeople who are selling the value of a community newspaper ad buy. Here are the stats you will want to pass along to your salespeople:
– On average, readers share their paper with 2.36 additional readers.
– Nearly 40 percent keep their community newspaper more than a week.
– Three-quarters of readers read local news “often to very often” in their community newspaper.
– Among those going online for local news, 63 percent found it on the local newspaper’s website, compared to 17 percent for sites such as Yahoo, MSN or Google, and 12 percent from the website of a local television station.
– 60 percent read local education news “somewhat to very often” in their newspaper, while 65 percent never read local education news online.
– And finally, something to brighten the day of everyone in your ad department: 47 percent say there are days they read the newspaper as much for the ads as for the news.
And in other survey news, community newspapers experienced a slight decline in circulation volume in the second quarter of this year compared to the first quarter, down about 2 percent as a group, according to the latest audit data from Circulation Verification Council.
The CVC survey said 45 percent of community newspaper publishers reported that circulation increased, with the heaviest declines in the Southeast.
You have already read Andrew Chavez’s great piece here on this site about the impact of Craigslist on newspaper classifieds. Now check out these three articles from NAA that tell the stories of three newspapers that have gone to free classifieds:
- Oregonian Aims to Change Perceptions, Create Attractive Marketplace
- Atlanta: An Exchange of Sites and Mindsets
- In Houston, Kaango Brand Boosts Print
NAA’s Digital Edge blog also tells the story of a smaller newspaper, The Daily Journal of Kankakee, Ill., which went to a free classifieds concept (no URL here because you need a Digital Edge subscription to access this one, so read on to find out what happened).
For the Kankakee paper, the impetus was the establishment of a free shopper four years ago. The shopper sold its display ads but gave away its classifieds. The paper hired a temporary employee who called everyone who had taken out a free ad in the shopper, telling them that the Journal also had free ads and had a much greater circulation.
The shopper even offered free auto ads – the newspaper countered with a $19.95 “Run It ‘Till It Sells” promotion. It partnered with a local car wash to offer $5 car wash coupons for readers who submitted a photo along with their six lines of ad copy.
The paper even purchased digital cameras and offered to take a photo of a reader’s car if the owner brought the vehicle to the newspaper office. The bottom line: The Daily Journal‘s classified section has grown to more than four times its original size.
Says the paper’s classifieds manager: “It’s been phenomenal. We actually didn’t see a downturn in revenue after we started this.” Even the pet section has grown, with dog breeders across the state wanting to advertise.
The result? The free shopper has disappeared, and The Daily Journal has maintained its free classifieds policy for merchandise under $400. Since the shopper died, the paper changed its policy to offer the free classified only to newspaper subscribers. Each month, the paper signs up 25 to 30 new subscribers because of the free classifieds offer.
Categories
Something for your ad sales reps
Check out this handout from NAA that details what the organization considers 10 truths about newspaper circulation. The interpretation of some of their points will be debated, but this one-page handout will make a great addition to advertising pitch books — it basically gives the reasons why newspapers are still a great buy for advertisers, print and online.
This article summarizes the current health of community journalism, but also says that there are problems that wise publishers need to pay attention to. One of those issues is competition. The author notes that community newspapers frequently point out that they have no competition. But, he correctly notes, to say that there are no other newspapers does not mean that there is no competition. The article also has a good discussion of the decline of classified ads under competition from Craigslist. Be sure also to check out the Associated Press article that’s cited several times in this article.
Check out this article in PaidContent. It surveys some newspapers who are charging for online content, including the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen. Here’s a quote: “The newspapers tend to be located in smaller, often rural markets; online-only subscriptions are typically priced at a substantial discount to the print edition (in general, about 75 percent of what the print product costs); where numbers are available, the number of online subscribers is still a tiny percentage of their print counterparts (less than 5 percent); and many of these papers say they began charging not so much to make money online, but rather to protect sales of their print editions.”
Successful managers are always looking for ideas. And sometimes, they find great ideas in articles – or from people – that they don’t always agree with. That’s why I want you to read Steve Outing’s piece on making online profits. There may be some things that don’t apply to you; there may be things you don’t think you can do right now; and there may be a few things you just disagree with you. But Steve gives 12 ideas, and I’ll bet that there are one or two that will work for you. It’s worth checking out.
A what, you ask? My newspaper needs a Facebook strategy? Yes, you do. And the fact that you do is symptomatic of the changes that are engulfing today’s community journalism. This article will take only a few minutes to read, but it overviews the issue, including some ideas on monetizing your Facebook presence.