Comments on: Newspaper futures http://www.harryrclarke.com/2009/03/12/newspaper-futures/ On economics, politics & other things Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:34:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: jc http://www.harryrclarke.com/2009/03/12/newspaper-futures/comment-page-1/#comment-8857 jc Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:51:00 +0000 http://www.harryrclarke.com/2009/03/12/newspaper-futures/#comment-8857 I have been thinking about this too.<br/><br/>There is a model there somewhere only thing is someone hasn't thought about it yet.<br/><br/>Why not charge a great deal more for the print version while migrating everything to the web.<br/><br/>In other words newspapers are essentially treating the tree version as the main plank of the strategy. Why not simply treat that as a nuisance necessity, charge more and migrate everything over.<br/><br/>When you say people won't pay for the online version... I'm not sure that's true. If you were asked to pay say 20 cents a day for the NY Times you probably would. They could make money without the distribution costs.<br/><br/>Here's the other thing. Have any of these people ever thought about how you would start a newspaper from scratch these days. If they did you wouldn't find none of them thinking that they should treat the tree version as the major part of the strategy. I have been thinking about this too.

There is a model there somewhere only thing is someone hasn’t thought about it yet.

Why not charge a great deal more for the print version while migrating everything to the web.

In other words newspapers are essentially treating the tree version as the main plank of the strategy. Why not simply treat that as a nuisance necessity, charge more and migrate everything over.

When you say people won’t pay for the online version… I’m not sure that’s true. If you were asked to pay say 20 cents a day for the NY Times you probably would. They could make money without the distribution costs.

Here’s the other thing. Have any of these people ever thought about how you would start a newspaper from scratch these days. If they did you wouldn’t find none of them thinking that they should treat the tree version as the major part of the strategy.

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