Angus Farquhar, Online Video Producer

“They gave the advertising away for free”

Yesterday I tried to articulate how I feel about the demise of newspaper websites in a comment on my post about the closure of the Rocky Mountain News, but today Paul Robinson over at Vagueware has posted something that is much more eloquent than I could ever have put it.

Paul expresses exactly my feelings on how newspapers have failed to make money from the scarey new online world - in fact they have spent years undermining their ability to make money out of their websites by jealously trying to protect their dying print publications and failing to think creatively.

“Phone any regional newspaper title in the country and speak to their ad sales team. The conversation will result in them offering you a rate card for the print edition. Sound sceptical about the costs and benefits. They will offer space online for free.”

I’ve seen that happen so many times it is scary - despite the online team (ghetto’d as we were) pleading them not to.

“In essence to secure the advertising for the print edition, they have in the past completely undermined the business they need to survive in the future. They have told every one of their advertisers that online adverts are not worth paying for.”

And now these businesses think that after years of getting consumers accustomed to free content and advertisers thinking that there is no value to online advertising (despite the fact that an online eyeball is demonstrably more valuable than a print one) that they can now start asking consumer to pay for their content!

“News websites will slowly shut down and become adverts for the print and subscription-only content via the new technologies sure to become dominant in coming years. Except of course, the audience won’t care. They won’t sign up. Why would they if even a few websites remain free and open for business?”

Exactly. I’m a very dedicated reader of the Guardian and it’s website, but there is almost zero chance that I would sign up to a subscription website model unless they come up with some new very compelling model.

Paul does offer some potential solutions to the whole that newspapers have dug themselves in to, but I have to say I’m sceptical about their ability to listen. There are too many people with vested interests protecting the current model even if, ultimately, it means the demise of their livelihood.

Without a wholesale restructuring of everything from business models to bonus structures and hiring policies many companies will simply stick to protecting a smaller and smaller ‘core’ business instead of innovating and embracing fully this new age we find ourselves in.