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Friday, September 21, 2007

Newspapers and Internet - The Battle Rages

Being a retired trailing spouse in a new town - I have lots of "free" time. Two of my favorite pastimes are reading the newspaper and surfing the Internet. One can spend hours on their recliner with the CNN blasting on the background television - reading the newspaper - and checking out all the great sources on the Internet.

In a past life - I was a school teacher. But I also owned a weekly newspaper. I realize all the work that goes into producing a newspaper of general circulation. It is the equivalent of writing a novel everyday - and getting it printed - and distributed in the dark hours of the night - so the readers have all the news they need fresh at the breakfast table. I dare say that the newpaper is fresher than the bread - coffee - milk - or cereal you are eating as you read the news.

I do notice that more and more that the daily newspaper sits on the coffee table as I read the Tallahassee Democrat on the laptop in my barcalounger. As my eyes get older and older - they require bigger type and brighter lights. With just one click on my MacBook - I can enlarge and brighten any story or picture I want viewing Tallahassee.com. Another neat thing about having the Democrat online is that with a few keystrokes I can respond to an editorial or new article - making me feel interactive with the community and important.

If you are reading this you know that I write a blog for the Paper. Doing that makes me feel that I am part of the community and that I matter. It also gives me the direct feedback that I need. I have a friend - Bob O'lary - who seems to enjoy this technology to the endth degree. He offers a brilliant and biting perspective as to what is going on in this town and its media. All for free.

In many towns - there is a love/hate relationship between the printed newspaper and news on the Internet. The newspaper folks realize that the future is electronic journalism. Some papers seem to be trying whatever they can to incorporate the Internet into their paper. But there is one big problem that it seems no one has found a solution. How does a newspaper make money in a medium where you give away the product for free?

A grand experiment just failed yesterday. The New York Times made a big change. For the past 2 years - they have been selling an exclusive news service. For $7.95 a month - readers could see almost the entire paper online. Yes - they offered a few stories for free - but for the "in depth" stuff - they charged a fee. Yesterday - The New York Times - cried uncle. They said from now on readers could see the whole paper for free. Now - readers can even search the Times archives for free. I love having the New York Times as a news source - and this decision was a great reason to celebrate. But to other papers that were hoping this would be the savior of their newsrooms - this ray of hope was extinguished and it saddened them. So it is back to the drawing board for an original thought - "How do we make money with our newpaper on the Internet?"

Bob Garbordi has been doing a great job with the Democrat and the blogs. He has encouraged folks like me to write blogs for free - to salve our vanity - and create reader interest. The back and forth banter between bloggers and readers has actually increased the sales of the newspaper. Still - it seems to be a finger in the dike holding back Ocean Internet.

People think that daily newspapers make money on newspaper general circulation sales. They do not directly. It costs much more that the 50 cents you pay for the Democrat to print this novel size tome. To make money just on newspaper sales - they would have to charge about $3.00 per copy and of course circulation would drop dramatically if they charged that much. The daily paper makes the "big bucks" by selling advertising. The higher their circulation - the more they can charge for advertising space.

To add another layer of competition - the classified advertisng department has taken a huge hit. Internet products like ebay and craigslist compete directly for folks selling their cars - furntiure - homes - tools - you name it. Newspapers get so paranoid about these net sites that I wonder as I type if this story will be published because the freedom of the press is only for people that own a press.

All that being said - it is an interesting time in the media business. I am enjoying my morning newspaper - satellite radio with Howard Stern - CNN on DirecTV - Comcast high speed Internet - free wireless from the Digital Canopy - US snail mail - - iphone - text messages - itunes store - Limewire - ebay and craigslist. It is an interesting time we live in. It is great to see the different media sources slugging it out. I am pretty proud of the Democrat holding its own in this battle. You have to admire any organization that can get The Trailing Spouse to do anything for free.

1 comment:

joshua said...
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