A chill at the Times?
Jack Shafer at Slate must strike fear in every newspaper publisher's heart. His column is about canceling his New York Times subscription -- a $621 value -- because he no longer needs it. The redesigned Times Web site is all he needs. He payment for nytimes.com: $0.00.
As publishers try to find the best online business model that will support the journalism we want to produce, few of them are ready for this. We know people are leaving papers to read news on the Web. Most of us are improving our sites (some more than others and some faster than others). At the same time, people are still buying newspapers. We're shifting resources around, building the Web sites, working on improving the paper. All along we're trying to prepare for and even hasten the tipping point. I love the daily newspaper -- its feel, its serendipity, its influence, its permanence. I also love the versatility, the reach, the interactivity and the immediacy of the Web.
Advertisers go where the audience is, or rather, where the potential customer is. And, at least under the current newspaper business model, we need the advertiser to pay the freight. The best online business model could well be different. I'm not convinced we've found the best one yet.
Where's the readership tipping point? I don't know that Shafer is it. I wonder, though, as I watch my teenagers use the paper and the Web, whether they are. I know one thing: It's coming faster than many journalists and publishers think. (I'm fortunate. I have a publisher who understands that it's building speed every day.) Meanwhile, the journalists here are trying to make both the paper and the Web stronger and better, serving the different, shifting markets.
Comments (1)
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Mr. Robinson, I hate to drop my opinion on you, but I think the newsPAPER is going the way of the Gooney Bird. I too love the feel, and even the smell, of the morning newspaper. I’m not sure breakfast, and especially my coffee, would taste the same without the newspaper opened and folded to the article I am reading. But, the computer is more and more taking over actual wood pulp paper. People still do a great deal of reading, in fact maybe more, but it is on the Internet. When we old codgers are gone so will your best customers be gone. Sorry to see it go.
Posted on April 9, 2006 2:33 PM