hankscott

Jarvis vs. Mutter: What Newspapers Are Worth

It's what used to be called a newspaper or magazine. They had editors who picked and chose among the various issues and events of the day to select those most important and worthy of coverage. That way you didn't have to wade through all of the blather and noise that one is assaulted by from various interest groups, corner preachers, and PR firms.

I need the same product you describe. I'm tired of reading opinions about the media from kids who don't know anything about the business (see the blog post elsewhere on Seeking Alpha that analyzes the New York Times' annual cost in comparison to the median income of New Yorkers -- an irrelevant concern to The Times.)


On Mar 24 10:23 AM hankscott wrote:

> What I would pay for, in print or online (preferably delivered to
> my Kindle), is a daily briefing from an authoritative source of what's
> going on in the world of digital media. I find I'm too busy to read
> Seeking Alpha, Tech Crunch, Silicon Alley Reporter, the musings of
> Newsosaur, etc., etc., etc.
>
> Any ideas?
>

Jarvis vs. Mutter: What Newspapers Are Worth

What I would pay for, in print or online (preferably delivered to my Kindle), is a daily briefing from an authoritative source of what's going on in the world of digital media. I find I'm too busy to read Seeking Alpha, Tech Crunch, Silicon Alley Reporter, the musings of Newsosaur, etc., etc., etc.

Any ideas?

Tax-Supported Content Should Belong to Taxpayers

You are damned right. Have you tried to get info from the US Bankruptcy Court's office in Manhattan? You're forced to rely on one of three elderly Dell computers to search the court's database, which is maintained by a for-profit private company. If you want to print out anything from the computer, the cost is eight cents a page, payable to the for-profit company (whose name I forget). So not only do you have to pay for content collected by the government, but what you pay for is slow and crappy service.

Why Couldn't Mainstream Media Stick to Its Core Competency?

The core competency of newspapers isn't production or distribution. The core competency of media companies in modern times has been aggregating audiences for advertisers by providing those audiences with compelling and relevant news content. (In olden days, before the development of the advertising industry, newspapers got all of their revenue from circulation). Think of printing presses as the manufacturing equivalent of web servers. Think of newspaper carriers as the physical equivalent of ISPs.

So what happens when someone is able to more efficiently aggregate advertisers without providing news (e.g. Google)? That's the dilemma newspapers face today.

Can Anything Save Newspapers?

Indeed it is like the buggy whip situation. Buggy whip manufacturers went out of business because they didn't understand they business they were in. They weren't in the buggy whip business, they were in the acceleration business. If they'd understood that, they would have started making accelerators for the newest form of conveyance (the automobile), and probably they'd be sitting around waiting for Congress to bail them out, but that's another story.

Newspaper publishers aren't in the news business. I know that sounds radical. But they really are intermediators whose business is assembling an audience for advertisers. They assemble an affluent and well-educated (albeit declining) audience by providing daily news on print. The question today is what new methods can they develop to aggregate audiences that aren't interested in print, or aren't interested in daily news.

Newspaper companies have assets -- relationships with advertisers, skilled staffers, powerful brands. So they need to learn to use those assets to aggregate audiences other than those who want to read news daily on paper. Which is not to say they shouldn't address that audience as well -- it's still more attractive in many ways than the mindless hordes who get their news from blogs about "Gossip Girl" etc.


On Dec 11 10:45 AM notsosmart wrote:

> its like the buggywhip-no need for it anymore.whats the big deal.when
> something no longer serves a purpose or is needed it goes away.anybody
> miss the coal fired steam engine?hard rubber tires?etc.i haent bothered
> with the ny times since they endorsed castro in the eisenhower years.
> i managed ok.

The New York Times' Challenge with Non-Local Newspaper Ads

What this analysis fails to take note of is The Times' positioning of itself over the past 20 years as a "national" newspaper. In fact, The Times' daily circulation in the five boroughs of NYC is something less than 250,000 copies, which ranks it No. 5 among the six English-language dailies publishing in NYC.

So the print newspaper isn't chasing just local advertising. The Times gets a bigger percentage of its ad revenue from national advertising than any other general interest daily except USA Today. The New York Times Magazine is one of the magazine industry's leaders in ad pages. That national focus is why The Times is trying to sell a print subscription to Scott Karp in Leesburg, Va., and why it has established or contracted for home delivery services in most major metropolitan areas in the US.

And advertisers presumably want to advertise on The Times' website because they want to attract the kinds of customers who read the material that The Times generates. Those customers tend to be well-educated, affluent, and influential. That can't be said for users of all website (Facebook comes to mind).

That said, you are correct about the essential issue newspapers face: Now to make the transition from a high CPM print-based advertising model to a low-CPM web-based ad model. And I agree that The Times ought to do a better job of explaining to you why a print subscription offers an advantage over reading the paper on the web.