Over the past little while, the Toronto Star has been running a series of in-house ads about how newspapers play an important role in delivering the news. Today, for example, there’s a full-page ad that says: “You shouldn’t have to search for clarity or direction”.
The ads are creative and they do make you think about how newspapers play a vibrant role in the news ecosystem. But they are dancing around the key issue: the economic model in which newspapers give away all of their online content doesn’t work.
It is becoming obvious newspapers must start charging for their online content. I’m not talking about Great Wall-like pay walls in which every story is buried unless you pay but a variety of user-friendly subscriptions that provide value to readers while providing revenue to newspapers.
And I’m not talking about subscriptions being the only source of online revenue. In fact, the newspapers that get it right will create a variety of revenue sources – advertising, e-commerce, premium services such as exclusive access to reporters and columnists, etc.
Of course, pay walls will be a significant part of the new economic landscape but there is no other way that newspapers can be viable. Sure, pay walls have failed in the past but the industry has found itself in desperate straits. If something isn’t done quickly, there will be far fewer newspapers left – something that would be a disaster.
For anyone who disses the idea of pay walls, ask yourself this question: how else will newspapers be able to pay the journalists who collect, synthesize and write the news that more people than ever are reading?
It’s time for newspapers to start implementing pay walls. And it’s time for consumers to realize that the free all-you-can-read buffet is going to disappear because is makes no economic sense.
Sure, there are going to be growing pains and difficult decisions will need to be made newspapers have no choice. They have to just do it.
Of course, someone has to be the first to jump. Maybe it will be media domo Rupert Murdoch, or maybe the New York Times, which recently initiated voluntary buyouts.
It’s like the old Fram oil filter commercial in which the mechanic says: “You can pay me now or pay me later”. For newspapers, the question should be rephrased – “You should pay me now and pay me later”.
More: Twitter CEO Evan Williams had some interesting things to say about the relationship between Twitter users and journalists at the Online News Association conference in San Francisco.
He suggests that while Twitter users provide “”little bits of information”, it’s journalists that identify the signals from the noise. This may be true but unless newspapers remain viable, all we’re going to get is lots of noise, and no one to do any sifting.
Even More: Google CEO Eric Schmidt wants newspapers to survive but the question is how Google could or will help them be economically viable.
