Saving Newspapers: Kinsley vs. Isaacson

The how-to-save-newspapers debate continues. In The New York Times today, Slate founder Michael Kinsley agrees with Felix that micropayments -- "pay by the slice," as Kinsley terms it -- are not the answer:

Micropayment advocates imagine extracting as much as $2 a month from readers. The Times sells just over a million daily papers. If every one of those million buyers went online and paid $2 a month, that would be $24 million a year. Even with the economic crisis, paper and digital advertising in The Times brought in about $1 billion last year. Circulation brought in $668 million. Two bucks per reader per month is not going to save newspapers.

Meanwhile, Walter Isaacson was on The Daily Show last night to discuss his Time cover story,"How to Save Your Newspaper," which touched off the current round of debate. "You gotta get away from this notion that good reporting has always got to be given away for free on the internet...You gotta get to some system where some journalists are being paid for going to Baghdad," he said.

Stewart pointed out that it's hard to get consumers to start paying for something they're already getting for free. Isaacson's response: "We made a mistake."

Comments

[Marcap:]

"The how-to-save-newspapers debate continues."

I'm not sure that most people really care. In my opinion, hard-copy newspapers are a quickly dying breed. After all, other than advertising, most of today's newspapers contain little more than yesterday's news...news that we already received elsewhere, whether it was from the Internet, the TV, the Radio or from a recycled paper at a local coffee shop.

Feb 11 03:34 PM

[Jeanine Hughes:]

Unquestionably the industry is going through a seismic shift. Many ad laden local newspapers will fade away or be acquired by another media entity looking for marketshare. A paper like the NYT though is a national brand that provides far more than weather, classifieds, and local reporting. People still value great journalism, they just want the news, when they want it. Not when a paper is printed. The business model needs to change.

If not, well then you can always use your newspaper for insulation..

Feb 11 10:36 PM

[User 355766:]

One word to Isaacson: Google. I am sure Mr Isaacson is a very bright man, but he is forgetting that the paid content strategy has been tried several times. Which media company wouldnt love to monetize their content? It is not that they dont want to; they have tried and they have failed (think TimesSelect). Even the WSJ, whatever they say today, was seriously considering opening up just a few months ago. Google gives most of its services for free except one: advertising. It just happens that they control most of the line by line advertising on the Web, which they are able to publish on other people's websites. Thats genius, and thats 18 billion a year.

Feb 12 11:14 AM

[falstaff:]

I think micropayments as a subscription are less likely than a per-article payment of say 9 cents each...set up a credit card account and make the NYT and other papers available on a Kindle device with only a teaser blurb available until the user clicks and the payment registered onto a monthly bill. 50-100 articles clicked per month would add up...need also to charge a fee for reusing the content on any other sites...again could be small fees for the posting...

Feb 12 11:23 AM

[joel cardwell:]

The online model is no differnt from the print model. Publish news and information on the community you serve, be the watchdog of the government, and sell advertising based on the audience that reads the info!
You don't need to charge consumers to access the info, in fact, that model is a proven flop for newspapers. Grow your online audience with marketing and promotions, and serve relevent advertising to those readers that generates results for your customers. Price it competitively, grow your online only sales staff, and you are now playing in a wildly profitable arena.
Any questions?

Feb 12 11:44 AM

[kurt walter:]

Newspapers are in a death spiral. Face it. Admit it. Don't invest in them.

Feb 12 01:11 PM