The first Murdoch UK titles to raise pay walls are The Times and The Sunday Times. Starting June 2010, the sites will charge for content online, £1 for a day’s access and £2 for a week’s subscription, for both editions of the papers.

In perspective, The Times reportedly loses around £240,000 per day. A Guardian report from March 2010 estimates that the pay walls for The Times and The Sunday Times would bring around £1.83 million over a month if only 5% of the users pay for the daily fees, or £3.66 million per month at a 10% pay wall conversion rate. If the weekly £2 pass is chosen, the revenues for the paper would be considerably lower.

These estimates were based on the February 2010 ABCe figures, which indicate the two sites had a total of 1.22 million visitors per day. The Time’s monthly visitors numbers fell to 20.42 million from 21.4 million in January 2010.

A Pew study found that out of those who have a favourite news website (35% of the total surveyed), only 19% would be willing to pay for news online. For The Times’ impending pay wall, these figures would equate to  around 133,000 visitors paying for news, either £1 per day or £2 per week. The Times could make somewhere between £133,000 per day or £266,000 per week, from subscriptions only.

The maximum figures for a week would be only able to cover the losses The Times makes per day.

The advertising revenue was not included in this calculation. This was calculated with the ABCe figures for the month. If calculated with daily average visitors figures, it would equate to only around £81,130 earned per day through pay walls alone.

The NPA said the apps would “undermine commercial organisations’ ability to establish economic models on smartphones.” Outrageously, the BBC Trust, the governing body of the BBC, delayed the aforementioned iPhone apps because of the NPA complaint.

The Newspaper Publishers’ Association represents national and regional newspapers, magazines and business-to-business media, books and journals and data publishers, according to its website.

The NPA claims on the same site that its members, “publishers in particular, have grasped opportunities offered by the new technologies and are leading long-term investors in digital content and on-line services.” But that’s unless the BBC wants to offer free iPhone apps.

Building an iPhone app for a news site is ridiculously inexpensive and easy, especially for the smaller local titles which could be “threatened” by a BBC News iPhone app.

AppMakr is such an example: you can make a nice iPhone app for your newspaper within minutes (using RSS feeds, learn more about the process) and it starts from only $299. You can even insert your own ads within the content and set the price for the app. iSites is another great similar service.

Point in case — Newsweek and the Atlantic Wire, among many others, have created their iPhone apps this way. There’s nothing stopping NPA members to do the same, hence establishing themselves on smartphones, free of charge or paid for, with or without advertising. What more can you ask for?

The Guardian has its own great best-selling iPhone app (which I reviewed here). The Telegraph, Independent and Manchester Evening News have their apps as well, though arguably not as good as Guardian’s. None of them are created using the solutions I suggested above, but some could do with a makeover.

The BBC News iPad app is available in the US though, where the corporation operates commercially, and paidContent says it’s already a big hit. Note that outside the UK, the BBC is not covered by the Trust review. The BBC iPhone apps will reportedly make it in the US as well, while the UK waits for its newspapers to get their act together.

Adults under the age of 35 have significantly increased their consumption of news in the past three years — and they profess a growing interest in getting news from print newspapers.

Some Hope for Newspapers in Greater News Consumption by Young
— Mark Fitzgerald, Editor&Pulbisher

I’m increasingly intrigued by surveys which go unscrutinised, such as the latest from McKinsey & Co. The survey says “average daily news consumption in the UK increased to 72 minutes from 60 minutes three years ago,” and younger news consumers “overwhelmingly prefer to get their news from television and the Internet.”

Great, this actually fits with the trend of declining (print) newspaper sales and a massive increase in online reading. But no, the story goes on to say: “interest in getting news from newspapers has grown, the survey found. Among people aged 16 to 24, interest in newspaper news grew to 64% from 53% in a 2006 survey. In the 25-34 cohort, interest grew to 61% from 51%.”

So if young people “overwhelmingly” prefer to get their news from the Internet, how come “interest” in newspapers has grown? Apparently, it’s because “newspapers remain the most trusted medium, with 66% of respondents describing the paper as informative and confidence inspiring,” the report quoting the survey says.

I find it hard to believe that 16-24s think that if you have the spare cash to print on dead trees, the news source is more trustworthy than an online one. Also, “interest in newspaper news” does not equate to actually buying the newspaper. Case in point — an overwhelming majority of Journalism students at the University of Lincoln (where I study) do not buy any newspapers, despite heavy discounts available on campus.

Actually, I think I can can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I have seen a student on campus carrying a newspaper in their hand (except the free campus publications) in the last three years. Why, because they can get the same content for free online, while they check their Facebook, Twitter, etc., among other possible reasons.

An interesting tidbit from the survey tackles pay walls: “even in a hypothetical scenario where online-only versions of existing newspapers and magazines cost 75% less than the print versions, only 14% of news consumers said they would pay for the online content.”

So, despite interest in newspapers, young people still prefer online and don’t want pay walls. I’m not sure where the “hope” for newspaper publishers should be found in this story.

]]> http://bdionescu.com/2010/04/young-people-still-care-about-print-survey-says-really/feed/ 1 http://bdionescu.com/2010/01/why-periodicals-dont-belong-in-the-ipad-ibook-store/ http://bdionescu.com/2010/01/why-periodicals-dont-belong-in-the-ipad-ibook-store/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:48:33 +0000 Daniel Ionescu http://bdionescu.com/?p=932

I don’t believe magazines/periodicals belong in the new iBook store for the iPad. This store uses the ePub format, which is what the Kindle uses as well, yet periodicals subscriptions on the Amazon reader haven’t really kicked off mainly because of the lack of graphics.

Also, ePub is not easy to update, unlike a website. If news breaks, how will the book-like format be updated? Comments, ratings, etc aren’t available either. All-in-all, not a very convenient solution, and not far from the static print versions.

Now, if you make an app, like the NYT (which is basically a ported version of the Times Reader), and offer it for download, you can update the stories any time, get push notifications, richer multimedia, etc. We also have to keep in mind the vast majority of magazines have websites which are updated daily, despite monthly/weekly print editions.

The only problem (for publishers) is monetizing these apps. The NYT app is free on the iPhone (I understand it will sync with the iPad one) and serves ads. Others, like the Guardian, are charging for it, but don’t serve ads.

But the resemblance between the NYT iPad app and the Times Reader desktop software leads me into thinking that NYT will try to charge for access to sections of the iPad app, like it does in Times Reader (front page stories are free). They already said they are planning another walled garden.

Nevertheless, I believe the App Store, paired with the iPad, offers more possibilities to periodicals publishers than the iBook store does.

Note — this comment is republished and adapted from my response to Will the iPad Save Media? Not Just Yet

• Embrace broadcast
• Twitter
• Get some new columnists
• Develop an “app”
• Stop laying off journalists

For more details on each step, see ‘Five things newspapers should be doing‘.

I had a quick wander through the app, and I was quite impressed: it single-handedly puts to shame the counterparts from the Independent or Telegraph — though credit goes to the latter two for putting their apps out there months before the Guardian.

The Guardian app keeps the same graphic identity with the website, including colour codes and I like how you can customise the front page (similar to Thomson Reuters’ News Pro app). You can choose which categories and how many items from each category appear on the home tab, and the image gallery section is quite sleek. You can also easily browse through articles by the same author and through tags (keywords) at the end of articles.

There are a few issues with the Guardian iPhone app though. I find the trending tab on the home page a bit confusing, and the podcast integration is nice, but when you actually listen to the file, there is no cover art. The most notable downside is the lack of landscape reading mode (they could learn a lesson from the Financial Times’ app here). Also, the only way I got around for updating the content was to close and reopen the app .

Overall though, I’m impressed with the Guardian iPhone app, especially as this the the first version. The lack of advertising is welcome, but you pay a premium for that. Perhaps there should be a free, ad-supported version alongside. Landscape reading should be a must for the next update.

If you’re not willing to pay £2.39 for the Guardian iPhone app, you can still read all the content for free from Safari.

– Later edit: I used the app a bit more and I also noticed the lack of video content and comment facilities. And here’s a little video from the Guardian introducing their app (the voice over in the video sounds like the Guardian’s Head of Audio, Matt Wells).

“Most managers in the [newspaper] industry have reacted to the collapse of their business model with a spiral of budget cuts, bureau closings, buyouts, layoffs, and reductions in page size and column inches. Since 1990, a quarter of all American newspaper jobs have disappeared.

The columnist Molly Ivins complained, shortly before her death, that the newspaper companies’ solution to their problem was to make “our product smaller and less helpful and less interesting.” That may help explain why the dwindling number of Americans who buy and read a daily paper are spending less time with it; the average is down to less than fifteen hours a month.

Only nineteen per cent of Americans between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four claim even to look at a daily newspaper. The average age of the American newspaper reader is fifty-five and rising.”

Out of print — Eric Alterman | The New Yorker

Later edit – another quote from the same article from Arianna Huffington:

“Traditional media just need to realize that the online world isn’t the enemy. In fact, it’s the thing that will save them, if they fully embrace it.”

In an article on their website on Wednesday, November 4 2009, sensationally headlined ‘City’s binge drinking crisis‘, there are only (exactly) 50 words of text, which are trying to sell me the printed version of the paper for Thursday, November 5. Here they are:

“New alcohol profiles for England have revealed Lincoln has the second worst rate for binge drinking in the East Midlands.

The statistics reveal that the city came second out of 40 local authorities in the region.

It also came fourth for alcohol related crimes and fifth alcohol related sexual offences.”

The article continues with one last paragraph:

“See Thursday’s Echo for more on the statistics, plus reaction from alcohol prevention groups and city MP Gillian Merron.”

So they are basically telling me that they sourced news yesterday (or possibly today), but they are only going to tell me more about it tomorrow. Well, here’s why I won’t buy your newspaper tomorrow:

1. I use Google search
I will type in “alcohol profiles for England” and (2.) click on the first result (see image below)

3. On that website I am going to look after some press release or spreadsheet with the numbers and I going to look for myself (approximately 45 seconds). You can download the spreadsheets with the data I believe they used, which looks like it was last updated on October 22, almost two weeks before the Echo report was written (corrections for this fact welcomed).

4. So I already learnt about the “more statistics” pitched to me in the article, and I can pretty much guess what alcohol prevention groups will say about binge drinking and the local MP will probably say that she’s working on it.

My point: If I can find and pretty much guess the news that you are pitching to me for tomorrow in about 5 minutes, what makes you think I will buy your paper the next day?

–Later edit: One commentator (Martin, Lincoln) on the article rightly points out: “Let’s hope the source of the figures is revealed, so that we can check them out for ourselves minus the sensationalist, scaremongering tripe that they’ll inevitably served up with…”

In his post, Shane makes a couple of good points:

• Lincolnshire Echo, BBC Lincolnshire and Lincs FM (bigest media outlets in the county) do not have enough manpower to cover every city council meeting or residents’ association forum
• The most beneficial of hyper-local coverage in Lincoln would be the West End of the city

However, my vision of hyper-local journalism in Lincoln is not particularly focused on a certain area of the city (though this is the whole idea of the concept) but on the whole city itself.

Let me explain: Lincoln, the admin HQ of the county of Lincolnsire, can barely be called a city. Lincoln has a population of just over 100,000, which is basically the size of a neighbourhood of a large city, such as London, Birmingham or New York.

And in these large cities hyper-local journalism makes sense, judging by the numbers. You just wouldn’t get enough page hits from a total of 20,000 inhabitants of a certain area (according to Shane’s approximation of the population of the West End) in order to sustain financially a hyper-local publication serving such a place.

Hyper-local journalism makes sense where a neighbourhood in itself has the population of Lincoln (such as the cities listed above), a number which would be able to sustain enough page hits to finance a website serving the area.

What I believe would work, related to the idea of hyper-local journalism in Lincoln, would be a blanketed city-wide coverage, which would be able to bring in enough page hits to sustain financially such a site.

A functional hyper-locl site would work like a Lincoln-only newspaper (not like the Echo, which has county-wide coverage). This site would cover most of the residents’ associations and city council meetings (2 staff), local cases at the crown and magistrates court (2 staff), police and fire brigade cases (2 staff). That would be 8 staff members in total, including an editor and sub-editor.

Such a site would generate enough traffic every month to be able to sustain itself financially through advertising and affiliations, such as event listings and syndicating content to county-wide media outlets (be it text, audio or video).

Realistically, for a Lincoln ‘hyper-local’ website as envisioned above, I would estimate around 100,000 impressions per month with around 15,000 uniques — enough to sustain financially a small team of journalists (with the right equipment, which is another topic that I won’t get into now).

Great video illustrating how the Internet is changing the way we find and consume news through social media. I would like to know though where all those numbers came from.

[Via Chris Brandrick]

Main: Jeff Jarvis at TheNextWeb conference 2009 (CC: Richard Pyrker) Medallion: Rupert Murdoch at the Web 2.0 Summit (C: James Duncan Davidson)

“Newspapers have had 15 years since the launch of the internet browser to reimagine and rebuild themselves for the reality of the post-Gutenberg age. But they didn’t. Now they are trying to reclaim old business models for a new media economy — a link economy, I call it, in which links give content value. Cut yourself off from links, behind pay walls, and you cut yourself off from the internet and its real value.”

– Jeff Jarvis in the Guardian. Also some great comments on his blog.

With that said, I hold on to my idea to save the newspapers.

I know this might sound a little bit over the top, but many people in the blogosphere are talking lately about the evolution of newspapers and how to charge for content more specifically. Well, I believe that charging for online content is not the best idea to rejuvenate the print industry.

What I believe is that the print industry should replace the physical paper with another method to distribute content rather than online. If that sounds interesting enough, continue reading.

The latest buzz in the race to save newspapers is charging for content and the buzzword seems to be micropayments. Dave Lee gives 20 practical and innovative ways to introduce micropayments for newspapers while Shane Croucher talks about group subscriptions for multiple online publications. But allow me to respectfully disagree with both of them, and a few others whose blogs I read through the time and can’t remember right now.

UK newspaper groups should unite and jointly create an electronic reader, following the model of the Amazon Kindle but with a few changes. Pictured within this post is a prototype from Plastic Logic (based in the UK, Germany and USA). There was an interesting piece in the New York Times about Plastic Logic’s e-reader project potential, but the e-reader I envision is somehow a combination between the Amazon Kindle and Sony’s new Reader Touch Edition.

The ideal e-newsreader (let’s just call it that way for the moment) would have a 6″ to 8″ inch e-ink screen (with a color screen scheduled for the second iteration of the product) and a touchscreen like the Sony Reader Touch Edition, instead of a full keyboard like the Amazon Kindle. It has to be thin, with a great battery life (up to two weeks or more) and also recharge wirelessly via an accessory like the Palm Touchstone.

But most importantly, the UK e-newsreader should have an Amazon Whispersync equivalent, basically free bundled access to 3G data, used to download content on the device wherever and whenever needed. Plus, the interface should be very touch friendly (take a lesson or two from the iPhone) and the reading interface should more be like Harry Potter’s The Daily Prophet (which is soon to get real as well according to The Times). Having moving images, audio clips and adaptive traditional newspaper layouts is a very important point and would differentiate the e-newsreader from the regular e-book readers who basically display a PDF-like static document.

I know, I know, most of these things are already out there in some form or another, but there’s nothing in the UK or the US whatsoever to combine all the features listed above. And the next big step would be to actually sell this device.

Newspaper groups should subsidise the e-newsreader, in a similar way wireless carriers subsidise mobile phones. There’s an interesting story about how The New York Times costs twice as much as sending every subscriber a free Kindle. With that in mind, newspaper groups could slowly replace print subscriptions to e-newsreaders. Besides making savings from subscriptions (printing, distribution, commissions) and bringing more interactive and innovative ways to advertise, newspapers could also persuade some readers on the benefits to the environment this move could bring.

However, I don’t think selling individual newspaper subscriptions would be enough. Newspaper groups should sell subscriptions in packages of several publications (a point from Shane’s idea) – an example being Trinity Mirror group selling a subscription bundle for the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and one’s local newspaper such as the Lincolnshire Echo in my case. That, plus a free e-newsreader for something like £60 per year would be a great deal. Add to this the advertising revenue the group makes and subtract all the huge savings from bypassing printing and distribution and this way the newspaper groups can start making some good profits.

So here’s the executive summary:

• Sleek thin device with wireless downloads and moving pictures
• Device subsidised by newspaper groups
• Subscription bundles for newspapers from the same group