Apparently News Digital Media’s Richard Freudenstein delivered to the Adversiting and Marketing Summit their strategy for online paid news. And Mumbrella.com.au posted and article about it. So I wrote a response in the mumbrella forum that goes like this.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Look, its pretty bloody obvious what to do. Stop thinking about newsPAPERS and start thinking about news STORIES. You are all so hung up with the paper part, get over it!
Yes your content needs to be high quality. But people have until recently, largely assumed that the accuracy and integrity of major news media already exists. So there is no additional quality benefits to readers.
So here is he deal. (Can’t believe I am giving this away for free!)
Its the long tail model Apple have brought to itunes. I mean seriously. Lets say the newspaper has 100 stories. Today I pay $2 for that. But I only read 10 stories and glance over the rest of it. (I just paid 20cents a story distributed buy a Newspaper) But the cost of creating the stories is variable based on the complexity, the size of the market. But, in the internet world the costs of distribution scale diminish rapidly.
The answer, let people buy news stories and investigated stories. The journalists have a career path and the users can buy what they want. There is a funding model that says $0.15c per story (cheaper than a newspaper, but with greater margins and distribution scale) and $0.47cents for investigations and $1 for black Saturday – ongoing story rights etc.
The advertisers get highly targeted audiences as well as run of network.
Then the News media set up micropayments services and start taking a small percentage there too.
Step 1 – Stop thinking about mass newspaper distribution strategies and start thinking about mass story distribution strategies.
Step 2 – Deliver on the above model and enjoy your financial success.
Step 3 – Start to drive additional revenue models. Pay for back stories, pay for printed editions, create a news story for your 60th birthday blah blah.
All the best
Nick
Actually let me add. Of course, “if the content is good enough people will pay”. But what price! Sell stories at $0.01 cent if you have to and then stop generating the crap that doesn’t sell. Get focussed and efficient goodness sake.
Every journalist will have a brand power, every story a value and the two will come together in a variable price model.
But for now make it easy to buy (micropayments) and make it easy to store and access.
Actually, imagine the potential impact on the quality of search results for Google. Now theres something to think about. !
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now I will add, that Newspaper companies have to change their attitude from being the worlds Luddites to being the worlds innovators. You see its all digital now! They need to move ahead of the video and audio curve faster than TV and Radio. Journalists will need to shave and dress appropriately, so they can present themselves to the audience and not hide behind the pen. To be honest, I can’t see it happening!
