Comments on: Who would buy a newspaper? Anybody?

By: Andrew Baron

Andrew Baron — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:18:02 +0000

This is an interesting question to revisit today a couple of years later. Now TV Stations are all available to be bought for under a $1M too, sometimes coming along with even less in liabilities and even more in real estate value (they sometimes own their own building, trucks, equipt, etc). I like the idea of preforming an experiment in a small town in America to see if you can convert the newspaper readers and local tv stations to consume their news online, and stop that waste of newspaper printing *NOW* and move everyone more towards tv over i.p.

By: Jay Martin

Jay Martin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:10:22 +0000

Just reading a newspaper feels nostalgic now days. I think they are a dieing breed. Some may make a shift to online models but most will simply not survive. Good article.

By: When 15 Year Olds Write, the World Listens

When 15 Year Olds Write, the World Listens — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:34:41 +0000

[...] Who would buy a newspaper? Anybody? (buzzmachine.com) Share and Enjoy: [...]

By: Zitat der Woche (KW 21) | relevant media. now.

Zitat der Woche (KW 21) | relevant media. now. — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:23:34 +0000

[...] Den gesamten Beitrag finden Sie hier. [...]

By: Rob Paterson

Rob Paterson — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:50:40 +0000

To some extent they already are – by contributing to content and in some instances application development to the websites they use and love.

While I don’t think they’ll be working for free – their expectations about their working lives were very different from ours.

By: Rob Paterson

Rob Paterson — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:48:15 +0000

@Craig – there were many perspectives at the conference because of the mix of pure online businesses and print. Some still struggling to come to terms with the web and others living in the new link economy – I’ll leave you to guess which ones were doing well.

WWGD was referenced a lot and you’re right the rules do apply and in our business we’re going to be living by them.

By: DTs Flash Drive Blog

DTs Flash Drive Blog — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:10:24 +0000

Some bloggers ARE being paid. Indirectly via ads, referral commissions etc. – not via subscriptions. Although Kindle blog publishing is going to change that.

The dinosaurs are dying out…once again. Welcome to evolution!

By: Darren

Darren — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:38:40 +0000

Yeah, and that’s going so well — http://www.examiner.com/x-8206-Nashville-Paranormal-Examiner

By: Solitude

Solitude — Sat, 16 May 2009 02:00:27 +0000

“The Internet’s been around for decades now and there’s no paid content model.”

That would be because the cost to publish and distribute is so low, that ANYONE who wishes to write – can. This was predicted in the late 80s and early 90s.

Professional Journalists must now compete with hundreds of thousands of passionate, amateur writers. Read Clay Shirky’s piece on the current economic situation: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

By: Jeffrey S. Klein

Jeffrey S. Klein — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:38:49 +0000

The San Diego Union Tribune was sold to a private equity group….most likely, for the real estate, which is probably worth more than they paid for the entire newspaper.

By: Bob Wyman

Bob Wyman — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:48:02 +0000

You wrote: “their market caps are worth practically nothing. ”
Actually, their “real” market caps are higher than you might think. To get some sense of real value, you need to add debt to the market price of the outstanding stock. For many of the newspapers, debt levels are very, very high. If you buy the newspaper, you also buy its debt…

You should also realize that for some papers, the quoted stock prices are not actually measures of the company’s value. Stock price is largely effected by expectations for the stock’s momentum. (i.e. price is set by expectation of future price level – not by analysis of the company’s real “value” as shown via fundamentals or expectations of actual business returns. — Many of these prices are “speculative” and should not be considered to have any relationship to business value.)

bob wyman

By: Joe Mescher

Joe Mescher — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:35:08 +0000

Blasphemy…

Banding news organizations together can work, however:

What about the Tremendous Fixed Costs associated with presses?

Should organizations declare bankruptcy, forfeit their brick & mortar lines, and focus on Digital News? …

By: New Model

New Model — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:15:59 +0000

“As you know, we famously don’t pay our bloggers” – Arianna Huffington

By: AlanW

AlanW — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:04:22 +0000

This is ridiculous. The Internet’s been around for decades now and there’s no paid content model. No one wants to pay for anything – news, entertainment, music, whatever. And no one is making up the lost paid content revenue with advertising (OK, aggregators are doing OK, but you need like three of them to provide all the world’s content).

We’ve played this “some innovator will figure out a model” game long enough. Either people’s willingness to pay for content will have to change (unlikely) or online advertising rates are going to have to skyrocket (somewhat less unlikely). It’s either that or accept that any product or content that relies on intellectual property is simply going to whither away.

When all information is free, information won’t be worth paying for.

By: Mike Manitoba

Mike Manitoba — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:51:38 +0000

Hey, Rob, you should’ve asked them if THEY’D work for free.

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:02:25 +0000

@Rob Paterson

What was the perspective on the conference “Shaping the future of Classifieds”?

All of the themes in WWGD apply just as well to classified listings as they do to news….

By: invitedmedia

invitedmedia — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:00:22 +0000

i highly doubt “today’s” mobile device/pc and the ones twenty years from now will resemble each other at all.

if you think so, i have a 20lb. phone in a bag that plugs into that thing we used to call a cigarette lighter and an antenna with a fun-to-lick suction cup to sell you (cheap, like an entire newspaper organization).

who here ever said anything about “assuming pc-based web browsing is the end game”?

the web morphs and moves on a daily basis… traditional media? not so much.

By: Rob Paterson

Rob Paterson — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:15:15 +0000

Just spent the day at the International Classified Media Association conference in Tallinn “Shaping the future of Classifieds”. One panel was a group of Millenials (those born after 1982).

They were asked whether they read a printed newspaper resounding answer no (they were pretty incredulous at the question). Would they pay for content online – again no. They were confident someone would do it for free.

Their general use of the web was completely different to the conference attendees (most 40 plus years old CEO types) and their expectations of it were different – any media organisation needs to look at these future customers when trying to define any online strategy.

BTW just read (or listened to) WWGD excellent, the millenial panel constantly referred to how they use and pass on links.

By: Steve- UK

Steve- UK — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:58:54 +0000

Why does everyone assume that PC based web browsing is the end game for the news media? Isn’t it more likely that consumers (real people, not geeks) will prefer to consume news and long-form text via mobile devices optimised for the purpose, complete with relevant location based services and integrated billing. In twenty years time, the idea of shackling oneself to a desk and squinting at a screen to read the NYT will seem laughably quaint and rather sad. Desktops are fine for active search, communication and discovery – but the majority of media consumption is a passive, serendipitous, lean back experience unsuited to the PC or Mac screen

By: tom s

tom s — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:58:45 +0000

Hasn’t Pearlstein also described the AP? The AP could, if it felt like it, team up with local or freelance op-ed types and run a paper. Of course, why would it bother?