Pay Per View news sites and charging for online content

[upsidedownwalrus]

Print start-up costs are massive.

Internet start-up costs are tiny.

So if all 'mainstream' news sources make themselves PPV, then small, independent, amateur and citizen journalism will just get a huge shot in the arm. The most successful will see their advertising revenues increase, meaning that some of them will be able to make it a full-time occupation and go 'pro'. When the big multinationals and conglomerations see this they'll latch on to the idea that by providing a free news site they could gain a marketing advantage.

A gross generalisation, but we'll end up with a mix of two types of news site. One will be those provided by major companies, laden with brands and advertising and heavily spun to the corporate line. The other will be 'blogosphere' style stuff. Probably no less skewed, but in a different direction, and lacking the resources of the big players so likely more specialised.

If the 'old media' had cottened on to this a while back then they may have been able to survive by adapting their business model towards providing microsites. As it is, they're fucked.

Of course, the content itself will all be provided by reuters et al. No change there.

Corax has spoken, and it will be.

 

[JHE]

Internet start-up costs are tiny.

Setting up a simple little site may be cheap, but the costs of setting up and maintaining a good news site, like Timesonline or Guardian Unlimited or the BBC etc, are not tiny.

Plus there are the usual costs of journalists etc.

 

[mauvais]

I won't even comment on the laughable lack of merit in most blogs or citizen journalists, but in case you'd forgotten, BBC News and its website is a fucking hideous affront to reporting.

Man 'does thing'

A man has 'done a thing', according to reports and/or an anonymous study. So far it is believed to be a bad thing.

The man lives in a red house with a red door.

The first paragraph repeated again for no reason.

This is not the first time 'this' has happened. 'Earlier' this 'year', a 'different' man 'did a different thing', which was 'probably not related', sources claim.

Have you ever seen any things or men or other stuff? Why not shit in a bag and text it to 0779 DOGCUNT?

 

[Corax]

Setting up a simple little site may be cheap, but the costs of setting up and maintaining a good news site, like Timesonline or Guardian Unlimited or the BBC etc, are not tiny.

Start-up costs. On the internet, you can reach a potentially massive circulation immediately. With print, this is not so.

Plus there are the usual costs of journalists etc.

Hence my comment about Reuters. The major papers may have a proper journalist here and there, but the majority spend their time rehashing newswires.

 

[Shevek]

Print start-up costs are massive.

small, independent, amateur and citizen journalism will just get a huge shot in the arm.

Do we really want amateur journalists? Would you want an amateur doctor or surveyor? I am playing devils advocate slightly because I can see how first hand reports can be good.

My partner is involved with a joint project to launch an online audio visual site but the bandwidth costs are huge. If everything is free how do people make money? Will advertising really cover it all? I don't really know but I see the economics of it as being quite harsh.

 

[Corax]

Do we really want amateur journalists? Would you want an amateur doctor or surveyor? I am playing devils advocate slightly because I can see how first hand reports can be good.

Play devil's advocate all you want honey - did I say anything whatsoever about 'want'?

It's how I see things panning out, not my vision for a future utopia ffs. 'kinell.

 

[Shevek]

my main point is that (aside from the big boys like Murdoch) small producers, production companies, record companies, publishers need an income stream to make their work viable. The fact that everything is perceived to be free on the internet undermines small players as much as large ones. ITV and Channel 4 might go down but they take down a once thriving independent sector of producers, directors, writers, dramatists, animators etc...

Being the partner of someone running a small indie I can see how tough it can be to monetize what you produce.

 

[Corax]

How much do you pay for ITV?

 

[Shevek]

You pay through the advertising you watch

 

[Corax]

You pay through the advertising you watch

Well done.

 

[Shevek]

well done to you for extracting that answer from me.

PS are you on a wind up

 

[Corax]

PS are you on a wind up

No, but I think you may be trying to conjure a debate from a statement of the obvious. I'm not interested in that.

My vision of how it will play out isn't really very controversial, and neither can it be the subject of meaningful discussion as it revolves around future events.

So you're kinda wasting your time, no?

Bit painful and forced imo.

 

[Shevek]

?

 

[agricola]

my main point is that (aside from the big boys like Murdoch) small producers, production companies, record companies, publishers need an income stream to make their work viable. The fact that everything is perceived to be free on the internet undermines small players as much as large ones. ITV and Channel 4 might go down but they take down a once thriving independent sector of producers, directors, writers, dramatists, animators etc...

Being the partner of someone running a small indie I can see how tough it can be to monetize what you produce.

I think people need to separate the newspaper industry - which is almost certainly being made obsolete by the internet - and the wider entertainment sector that you mention, which isnt.

All the interwebs have done in the latter sector is enabled far more people to have instant access to material that previously they would have had to go to a shop to get. This has affected those shops and associated industries - and as download speeds increase it will affect games stores too - but the production side should not be too affected, indeed given the reduced startup costs, near total lack of actual, physical product (eg cd, dvd, video) to be made and the vastly increased access people will have to it should allow companies to make more money than before.

 

[Shevek]

I think people need to separate the newspaper industry - which is almost certainly being made obsolete by the internet

Isn't it quite scary though that professional journalism might be at risk of severe cuts. How can democracy (as we have it) operate without a functioning press? I don't think citizen journalists and bloggers can hold decison makers to account in the same way. Local newspapers seem to have suffered quite serious cuts/closures but then are people these days that interested in local news about an old man who won a medal or a burglary up the road. There are local projects like the Salford Star here where I live which certainly holds the local council/developers to account. But I don't know how it fares financially

 

[Barking_Mad]

It has fail written all over it.

 

[shagnasty]

So when your at work and you want to sort out a few winners on the gee gees you go to the bog with a lap top under your arm

 

[London_Calling]

If I'm going to pay for newspaper content I might as well have an actual paper.

Well, that's the whole idea isn't it?

Pay for it, you just get to choose how to read it.

 

[London_Calling]

How much do you pay for ITV?

I've tried in the past to get an approx. idea but it's too difficult to work out with the info online.

ballpark; BBC receives just over £5b, ITV (I think) £3.4b, obviously different income methods, and differet payer philosophies - the BBC's being fairer as it targets only those who consume its product.

 

[agricola]

Isn't it quite scary though that professional journalism might be at risk of severe cuts. How can democracy (as we have it) operate without a functioning press? I don't think citizen journalists and bloggers can hold decison makers to account in the same way. Local newspapers seem to have suffered quite serious cuts/closures but then are people these days that interested in local news about an old man who won a medal or a burglary up the road. There are local projects like the Salford Star here where I live which certainly holds the local council/developers to account. But I don't know how it fares financially

The problem is that what we have had, for nearly all of the time and across the majority of print media in this country (but especially since 1997), demonstrably not been the noble, truth-exposing journalism that journalists appear to like to pretend exists. We have had, to use Nick Davies' phrase, churnalism.

There are those journalists who expose stuff that needs to be exposed, but they are not in the majority and you could make the argument that (at least recently) bloggers have done at least as much scrutiny-style work, if not more.

 

[marty21]

How much do you pay for ITV?

it does have echoes of pay TV, when Sky came out first, and the other one that Sky took over, can't remember their name at the moment, people couldn't imagine people paying over £50 a month for telly, now millions do, I haven't gone for a big monthly subcription, but I still pay, part of my broadband package includes BT Vision, and I can if I wish pay one off fees for content...

if it can work for telly, I guess people reckon it could also work for news....

 

[salem]

I don't think this is such a crazy idea. Not going to work at the moment, but I think Murdoch is being quite clever here.

By charging for news he puts a value on it in peoples minds. Then when the Kindlesq devices become more mainstream and the micropayment charging is taken care of reliably by Amazon etc he will be in a prime position to cash in. Papers who still mirror content online for free will find it much harder to make the switch if they haven't established a precedent.

 

[London_Calling]

It's certainly not a crazy idea to pay for news, until the Internet we paid for news all the time and still do, whather it's in cash at a news stand, through the licence fee or through paying at the supermarket for advertising.

What's different is we've got used very quickly to having a non-pay option and some people have come to think this is normal rather than a stage in the evolution of news information on the Internet.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

People always did have a non pay option though. It was called not having a telly and using the radio

 

[laptop]

bloggers have done at least as much scrutiny-style work, if not more.

Tough question, this.

Yes, the holding-"democracy"-to-account activity that journalists' organisations hold up as the reason for their members' existence is a tiny, tiny minority of the "journalism" that gets done under actually-existing capitalism. That does not, however, stop the argument being sound in theory

On the other had, bloggers are overwhelmingly tertiary (3rd-order) sources. They look at what professional journalists (2nd-order sources) have quoted the political players (1st-order sources) as saying: then they sit and think and analyse (a luxury for which actually-existing capitalism does not stoop to pay professional journalists to pursue).

Without professional journalists, bloggers would have very, very little to analyse.

 

[London_Calling]

People always did have a non pay option though. It was called not having a telly and using the radio

Until tv was widely taken up, this was the situation (until 1971):

 

[A Dashing Blade]

He's trying to be the catalyst for the next big evolution in t'interweb usage. Too many peeps think that anything on the web should be free, they fail to grasp that "raw data" is a commodity but that "information" (ie processed/filtered info) is extremely valuable.

 

[London_Calling]

I suppose in a way I'll be quite glad when this first stage of news on the Internet is over and economic rationality returns - hopefully before we lose too many media publishers.

 

[teuchter]

He's trying to be the catalyst for the next big evolution in t'interweb usage. Too many peeps think that anything on the web should be free, they fail to grasp that "raw data" is a commodity but that "information" (ie processed/filtered info) is extremely valuable.

It's kind of interesting that the FT is the only paper that manages to get people to pay for its online content. Presumably this is because many of the people who read it make business decisions on the basis of the information presented to them, and accuracy/reliability therefore has a certain financial value.

 

[London_Calling]

Fwiw, I think the thing about the FT is people are paying for knowledge rather than 'news'; it might look like a newpaper article but it's world class analysis.