I get where you’re coming from and also think the economics of blogging (at least for most bloggers) doesn’t really pay. But bloggers didn’t cause the problem, they are simply a product. The internet caused the problem — if you want to view it in those terms — both by allowing everyone to have a printing press and putting a different (lower) value on advertising (some would argue it is a more realistic/measurable value). If you want to be mad at something, be mad at the internet. If not for it, everything in the newspaper industry would be fine.

And another potential blog business model bites the dust. Here’s hoping they look into Arrington’s investment portfolio!

And yet there’s plenty of money to pay managers and consultants!

Salaries are falling mostly because of scabs – bloggers, as some people call them. Instead of encouraging people to write for free, we should be pointing out that they are undermining the value of our work. Don’t encourage them. Don’t hire them. And, above all, don’t let them pretend they’re the future of the Democratic party.

I agree with you that newspapers have a failed business model. Their model has been that advertising makes up the vast majority of income (more than 80% in some cases is advertising, vs subscription and stand sales). Craigslist is one of the biggest threats to the classified section, and when counties are able to post legal notices on web pages instead of paying for pages and pages of notices in local papers, the papers scream bloody murder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_News_Service_v._Associated_Press

One can always nudge in whatever direction one wishes. The question is whether the readers will go along. Truth is The Times has been fairly forward thinking — for newspapers. Once the economic downturn has passed, they will find a level and likely see revenues grow as they adapt to the market and the market adapts to what remains. They are a singularity and will survive.

For many other newspapers the time for making plans is gone. Attempts to nudge people will simply drive them away, hastening market decline and forestalling adaptation or innovation. For many US newspaper the opportunity to lock in the past has passed. Likewise they now lack the capital and patience to wait for the future (whatever it may bring). We can discuss the whys and wherefores, even point fingers at who is to blame (I heard someone at my establishment doling out some responsibility to our host — JJ — because he was consulting at our place as it went to hell). But that is unlikely to change the reality that many large and mid-size metros are simply doomed at this point. What will replace them may still have a print component, but will be predominantly online. Those entities will be built on the economy and advertising that comes after.

As an aside, a colleague and I observed that the top pay for new hires at our place is now less than the starting pay we were offered when we came on board two decades ago.

I may not entirely like what comes next. It may lack the size, scope, benefits and (possibly) ideals that I have come to a) depend on and b) love. But that won’t really matter. In most respects, what comes next is a fait accompli at this point. All the posturing by lawyers and politicians, and hand-wringing by newspaper owners and publishers won’t really make a difference — except in the noise level.

You could call it a cost burden or you could call it a revenue multiplier. If the Times Web site draws people who didn’t previously read it, they’d need to draw a ton of them. If the Times Web site draws people who stop reading the paper, as it seems to, they’ve just made those readers worth about 1/10 of what they were before. If that’s the future, I’d nudge readers toward the past while I made plans for the future.

Also, I always hear you talk about how print is doomed. But with a few exceptions online publications aren’t exactly thriving. Online, much was made of the closing of Portfolio (bloggers seem to like nothing so much as seeing others brought down to their level). Less was made of layoffs at Wired.com – where “free” may not work quite so well after all. And there have been online news reports – unconfirmed, naturally, as most such reports are – that Paidcontent has seen better days. And online CPMs continue to fall . . .

Judy Tenuta once told me that although I was sweet her heart was promised to Bobby Vinton. And even though my name may sound familiar, I didn’t write a number one single for The Polish Prince. Perhaps if I had, the Domestic Goddess would be mine.

Much of my ad spend has been with print publishers that also maintained online properties. We designed our campaigns to track response by placement (including print) and the online placements were significantly more valuable for us.

But when the account execs called on us, we had to practically beg them to talk about their online properties. They were completely focused on print placement and shockingly uninformed, even dis-interested in discussing online.

As a result we could typically negotiate terms for online placement that were much better than it should have been. I’ve suggested to at least one publisher they should consider running a specialized sales team for online.

I think the investment would pay off in higher rates and better educated clients. From an organizational standpoint, such a split sales team would likely not be tenable.

Dale Harrison

What doesn’t make sense to me is how the NY Times makes the online experience _better_ than the print one by adding video, etc. While we’re pulling readers to a higher-margin product, they’re pushing them to a lower-margin product. I can’t understand that.

I think of video and other Web extras as experimentation. This was never possible for a newspaper to do before. Presumably, if these extras are compelling enough, they should be able to bring in revenue, somehow. If they turn out to be uneconomical in the long run, they ought to be dropped. Video might make more sense for a television Web site, which already has the expertise.

In the short and long term, newspapers need to learn how to sell online advertising, to train their account executives. They should be taking a cue from how Google does it. Google’s ads are mostly text-based, and not the in-your-face variety readers hate.

If I were running the NYT, I’d put it on an emergency budget right now, to stop the bleeding. Being in hock for a quarter billion on very onerous terms to Carlos Slim doesn’t look very promising.

While this may be an interesting question, it has no bearing on the topic at hand. “The press” whether in the form of newspapers or online does not exist to create jobs. Job creation is a wonderful thing but no company exists to create jobs and it is not the job of Congress or the government in general to ensure that a particular industry is profitable or that it creates jobs. Indeed, were it not for government coercion in the form of union support the auto industry might still be profitable. If no one ever made a dime doing journalism online it wouldn’t change the arguments. But the fact is, if no one can make money doing it online then it will go away entirely, leaving a vacuum to be filled by print once again. Since that isn’t happening your implication doesn’t appear to withstand scrutiny

If I were you, I’d study IDG, which years ago made the transition from being a print to being a digital company. Gains in digital revenue long ago surpassed losses in print. Now, they say, print is a burden. http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/05/05/print-sucks/

Makes sense to me.

I should say that I don’t work for an online publication- I should have been more specific. Obviously, much of what Billboard does is online.

How much of Billboard to put online is not my decision, of course – I’m the editor, not the publisher. Like every other publication, we’re struggling with these issues. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t think anyone does.

However, the magazine brings in far more revenue. And much of the revenue we do collect online comes from charging readers to view some content. Our solution has been to offer basics online for free and more articles in the mag and behind a pay wall. Think of the free site as a paperback and the magazine as a hardcover. While I’m not sure it’s the answer, I think it makes sense. What doesn’t make sense to me is how the NY Times makes the online experience _better_ than the print one by adding video, etc. While we’re pulling readers to a higher-margin product, they’re pushing them to a lower-margin product. I can’t understand that.

I’m certainly not getting rich – believe me. But so far online sites don’t seem to pay very well. Few of them offer opportunities to take the time to understand complex issues. (Some do, and some newspapers stink, but print encourages a kind of thoroughness that the Web does not.) And most bloggers seem require a sort of factory mentality where one’s productivity is measured in the number of posts rather than their quality. I would rather be judged by the character of my content than by the content of my character.

I don’t have a specific vested interest in the survival of the major labels. HOWEVER, I think our mutual interest in the survival of newspapers implies that to some extent. If intellectual property is protected and respected online, then record labels and newspapers will survive, albeit in smaller, more modest formd. If it’s not, I think we’ll have all sorts of problems as a society that have little to do with newspapers OR record companies – most importantly a startling trade deficit (IP represents 5 percent of U.S. GDP and more of our exports) and a poorer culture. I would not want to live in a world where every book was based on a lecture series.

>>>>>>I talked to record company A&R guys who were so inundated with unsolicited tapes that they threw many of them a way after listening for 15-30 seconds.

As you seem to suggest, the problem isn’t the tapes – it’s the innundation! The Web won’t solve that! As a medium, the Web tends to reward not quality but self-promotion. The bands that explode on MySpace aren’t necessarily the best but the ones that spend the most time emailing with fans. That’s nifty. But many of the artists I like are ones who aren’t very personable – Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Eminem. As much as the present A&R system is badly broken, I would hate to see it replaced by an online popularity contest with points awarded for congeniality.

Lastly, I was talking about Mark Olson. I’m not aware of any artist who’s broken without being online. I don’t think anyone has tried and failed, either, so there’s no data. I’d like to see an artist release an album solely on vinyl, then sue any site that put it up in European court by asserting his “moral right” – a well-established legal concept in most European countries that we sadly don’t have here in the U.S.

But I will say that most of the artists who say they’ve exploded online have exaggerated the importance of the Internet to their careers, sometimes deliberately to play to the mob. Lilly Allen had a famous father, so she didn’t come out of nowhere. Both she and the Arctic Monkeys quickly signed deals, the former with a major. Boxer Rebellion, the UK iTunes sensation, had professional management and sought a label deal a soon as their albums started selling. The biggest U.S. MySpace discovery is probably Hollywood Undead; their career went nowhere on the MySpace label and they’re now doing far better at A&M/Octone, a division of a major.

Simply put, it’s hard to find a band that has had a significant career by relying only, or largely, on the Internet. That may change. But it hasn’t yet.