welcome to segment to show 18 so CT can
newspapers get customers to pay for
their content um you know i generally i
don’t think so i think of your really
awesome newspaper like The Wall Street
Journal New York Times if you find the
right price point you might be able to
pull it off I think the majority of
newspapers for what they are especially
the local ones they don’t have enough of
the unique selling proposition to pull
it off because it’ll just take one local
newspaper to not play ball and the rest
i’ll have to follow what’s interesting
though is now son media and i came
across this story thanks to mike
Maddaloni on twitter at the hot iron
that son media is going to start a
metered paywall i’ll read a quote from
it online subscriptions will be a buck
99 for four weeks digital-only
subscriptions will be 699 every four
weeks and I I thought that was
interesting because you know you can pay
an extra two bucks a month to get access
to online I think that’s a mistake I
think right there you know if you’re
going to pay for a subscription you can
get access to the content online and as
for seven bucks a month for online
access you know the tier difference is
interesting i don’t know people would be
willing to pay seven dollars a month and
i know that sounds ludicrous but I think
it’ll depend on a paper by paper basis
is there anything unique about stuff
they publish is there any author that
you’re like oh my god I would pay for
this guy I think that’s the child well
that that’s just it you know newspapers
used to compete that way with columnist
but now if you’re calling this with a
lot of like balls you can just start
blogging on your own and next thing you
know you’re getting paid 5 grand to go
speak somewhere and you don’t care about
being a journalist anymore you can just
be an op-ed gut okay so a few things
worth mentioning the wall street journal
is like the worst example to give for
newspapers that are successful at
charging because the wall street journal
you can expense by and large if you read
The Wall Street Journal and sure your
company is going to pick up the tab so
you know it’s like I’m sorry that’s not
the selling argument from you New York
Times i think is an institution so the
new york times being able to have some
success with their pay wall i think is
just a testament to the fact that it’s
the new york times but what’s funny with
the new york times is be
or you know things go in cycles always
so you had a period where the New York
Times was like free free free and then
they realized that’s not going to work
so they had their hey they could have
made it work no but only one could have
made it work yes yes but but my point is
they well I mean early on because then
they hit like the Nasdaq crash and for a
few years at money wasn’t there so then
they put a lot of their top writers Tom
Friedman when I were behind the paid
wall and that aggravated the journalists
because the journalist is like listen I
want my order I want my audience I don’t
care about your profits so they were
like what the hell and you know there
was a lot of during like the Iraq war
and the whole Bush scandal du jour a lot
of people were like great article by Tom
Friedman but you can’t effing read it
because it’s behind a paywall so it got
to that issue were you know we need to
be relevant and we want to be the voice
and we want to be like the influencers
but if it only a select few are paying
to read this content then what’s going
to happen is you won’t beat the leading
voice you’re going to have the bloggers
and all that so then they went again
with free and then it was great great
great you know now it’s 2008 2009 2010
and then they realized okay long-term
were screwed if we don’t have some kind
of balancing act between free and paid
so now they have whatever subscription
service that they have and for all
intents and purposes it’s working to the
extent that there are a lot of people
signing up for it and then you hear over
the pond where you’re like The Economist
is bragging about we have a million
consumers and you know whoever there are
going to be cases isolated or you know
just pretty normal like the big names of
big institutions where they are going to
be able to command some kind of paid
rate however I think by doing that you
render yourself somewhat obsolete by the
next generation if you take a look just
like as a little like parallel world
let’s say GigaOM GigaOM launches they
have giga home for more initially telco
and internet and all that and then they
launch new TV for video and then they
themselves start writing deeper reports
and then they start charging that you
know so what percentage of their
audience is going to pay for that
probably very low but ultimately look at
TechCrunch TechCrunch started to blog
one dude blogging it then goes on to
solve for 20 30 million bucks yet
businessweek ended up selling for like
or a million bucks or two million
because it was all this liabilities
right so I just think like you’re going
to see this pattern where the
traditional media companies it’s typical
innovators dilemma they do have to
defend or business and revenues can’t
just come from advertising but they’re
ensuring that they will be pretty much
redundant within a decade and and again
what’s funny is I think American
newspaper groups when I talk to them at
least off the record because now the
executives they’re like their own kids
they see the writing on the wall and
they themselves aren’t you know online
guys they get it they know that print is
that that’s the key they might not want
to pull the plug on print overnight but
they actually know now they’re like you
know and we’re doing this on that
because prince is that like they’ll
actually say that and you’re like taking
it back oddly enough in Canada it’s like
they don’t really get that like those
famous quote from Warren Buffett he’s
like you know if you had the internet
there’s no way that you’d be like hey
man let’s like go chop some trees you
know hire some trucks take the lumber
print this paper or hire a bunch of you
know they have a lot of trees in Canada
so we’d like to cut them down you know
we have a lot of trees and in many ways
we’re like the most backwards business
country ever which is fine but but the
problem is we still see a very big
difference between American companies
that as much as they might be reluctant
they get the writing on the wall and
then Canadian companies that The Globe
and Mail paid transcontinental one of
the world’s largest printers nearly two
billion dollars for like a 18 year deal
to print shinier newspapers basically I
went to a launch party great sitting
there drinking having snacks and I’m
like I feel like I’m on the Titanic
they’re basically just moving chairs
around I’m like did they actually sign
an 18 1.8 billion dollar deal for shine
your newsprint I wonder how much of that
though was a bad business decision and
how much of it was nepotism
transcontinental owns a lot of
publications I’ve seen them pull a lot
of that kind of thing in between
publications and let’s face it you’ve
been doing business for with them for a
long time they probably traded a few
execs back and forth here and there and
that kind of thing is going to happen
that’s possible but ultimately I just
think you know the big question now is
with the iphone with the ipad you know
what i like we talked about jaan winner
last week
and one or media’s decision to not drink
the kool-aid with the iPad and that it’s
not necessarily going to be the
salvation of newspapers I do think
though that content is increasingly
going to be either promotional as in its
you give it away for free to promote a
person place or thing or its commercial
that it’s very like you know avatar or
HBO and ninety-nine percent of the
content to the world is going to be free
unpaid because there’s good at putting
that out there and free content can work
in a niche and I think that’s what the
Internet has taught us about content in
general is newspapers you know you had
your your front section your sports
section your arts section and so on and
so forth why because you actually had to
print enough stuff on a piece of paper
to make it worth it to deliver to
someone’s house or delivered to the
newsstand well now that we don’t have to
deliver the physical product it doesn’t
make sense to you know lump all these
different things together it actually
makes sense to focus on a single niche
the reason why the new york times in the
Wall Street Journal can get away with
charging as you said the wall street
journal you know people can expense it
that’s kind of their target market the
New York Times is the New York Times but
local newspapers they don’t offer
anything actually they don’t have a
competitive advantage there but where
the competitive Vantage is is that their
local so sure it makes sense for them to
pick up stuff off like The Associated
Press newswire but what they should
really be focusing on is owning their
local territories and if they did that
well I play glekas not among local I
don’t hold on I think if they did it
well they could actually sell
advertising properly maybe I mean look
at what tim armstrong and aol’s doing
with patch I mean local is a tough nut
to crack local is like the the you know
b2b of yesteryear where you think it’s
just like moneymaker and its really a
money pit just to go back to sports and
tell that to groupon but that’s
different ok perfect you set it up
perfectly this is why we should go on
the roll together I think content goes
only make sense when you’re using it to
promote something and then you make
money from something else amazon is an
e-commerce play like groupon is an
e-commerce play but groupon makes sense
local because they’re actually selling
ecommerce you see what I mean amazon is
one of the biggest publishers of content
both user-generated comments and all the
bios and profiles that they have but
that content drives a transaction right
so I think
like talking about now jumping back to
sports and news both very timely kinds
of content but sports is not a commodity
news is a commodity you know as much as
yeah that great shot of the guy you know
who is taking a shoe and throwing it at
Saddam Hussein or George Bush whatever
as much as that’s great and all that
it’s still a commodity you know like it
still news is is basically a commodity
so you know you could you think you can
make money and most of the news is tough
to monetize through advertising anyway
because nobody’s going to run a pre-roll
before a plane hitting a you know a
building or something but but with
sports at least it’s very unique it’s
timely and it’s not a lot to say for
baby no so I think ultimately you
justit’s like Seth Godin in his latest
article he’s like you know the Pyramid
of content you have bespoke you have
mass you have free blah blah blah
ultimately if you’re producing content
understand that it’s it’s it’s a cost of
goods sold it’s a marketing expense so
the ones that can create the best
content for the lowest price like the
objective is best content constraint is
minimize the cost if you can nail that
magical art meets science you know
challenge you’re going to win long int
and long but at the end of the day
content don’t expect people to pay for
it well Haley the bearer of bad knee I
think the fact that people and
apparently they still do this the fact
that people used to write into their
local newspaper lot shows that if you’re
smart about your local content people
will engage and I think if you can get
that level of engagement and using stuff
like Facebook Connect you can get enough
data from them that you can really
custom advertising enough to actually
make it worth sense at that point you
need a technological component either we
need a tech ad targeting company that
can offer these kinds of publications a
cheap solution or these companies got to
develop it in house which doesn’t make
sense and I think that’s why they
haven’t haven’t really gone anywhere yet
and on a quick aside I think something
that people should try going digital
only on a very local level is police
Gazette you know police because that’s
from back in the day it’s super
sensational stuff it’s probably the kind
of local news that people are interested
in the most no one cares about
corruption in City Hall everyone cares
about gangland slayings you just might
be able to pick up enough traffic off of
that to monetize it effectively so maybe
a police cazzette with a small like
actual real news
what the hell do you read in your spare
time final point you mentioned tech
you’re right that’s why New York Times
is saying you know we’re going to make
our first acquisition in a few years and
it’s not probably not going to be a
content deal it’ll probably be a tech
play because they think shiny new object
that we can add to our content will make
a lot their contents not broken their
delivery or the distribution system is
well their model is broke people sign
your content we’re gonna take a short
break come back with lightning round in
the email of the week
newspapers get customers to pay for
their content um you know i generally i
don’t think so i think of your really
awesome newspaper like The Wall Street
Journal New York Times if you find the
right price point you might be able to
pull it off I think the majority of
newspapers for what they are especially
the local ones they don’t have enough of
the unique selling proposition to pull
it off because it’ll just take one local
newspaper to not play ball and the rest
i’ll have to follow what’s interesting
though is now son media and i came
across this story thanks to mike
Maddaloni on twitter at the hot iron
that son media is going to start a
metered paywall i’ll read a quote from
it online subscriptions will be a buck
99 for four weeks digital-only
subscriptions will be 699 every four
weeks and I I thought that was
interesting because you know you can pay
an extra two bucks a month to get access
to online I think that’s a mistake I
think right there you know if you’re
going to pay for a subscription you can
get access to the content online and as
for seven bucks a month for online
access you know the tier difference is
interesting i don’t know people would be
willing to pay seven dollars a month and
i know that sounds ludicrous but I think
it’ll depend on a paper by paper basis
is there anything unique about stuff
they publish is there any author that
you’re like oh my god I would pay for
this guy I think that’s the child well
that that’s just it you know newspapers
used to compete that way with columnist
but now if you’re calling this with a
lot of like balls you can just start
blogging on your own and next thing you
know you’re getting paid 5 grand to go
speak somewhere and you don’t care about
being a journalist anymore you can just
be an op-ed gut okay so a few things
worth mentioning the wall street journal
is like the worst example to give for
newspapers that are successful at
charging because the wall street journal
you can expense by and large if you read
The Wall Street Journal and sure your
company is going to pick up the tab so
you know it’s like I’m sorry that’s not
the selling argument from you New York
Times i think is an institution so the
new york times being able to have some
success with their pay wall i think is
just a testament to the fact that it’s
the new york times but what’s funny with
the new york times is be
or you know things go in cycles always
so you had a period where the New York
Times was like free free free and then
they realized that’s not going to work
so they had their hey they could have
made it work no but only one could have
made it work yes yes but but my point is
they well I mean early on because then
they hit like the Nasdaq crash and for a
few years at money wasn’t there so then
they put a lot of their top writers Tom
Friedman when I were behind the paid
wall and that aggravated the journalists
because the journalist is like listen I
want my order I want my audience I don’t
care about your profits so they were
like what the hell and you know there
was a lot of during like the Iraq war
and the whole Bush scandal du jour a lot
of people were like great article by Tom
Friedman but you can’t effing read it
because it’s behind a paywall so it got
to that issue were you know we need to
be relevant and we want to be the voice
and we want to be like the influencers
but if it only a select few are paying
to read this content then what’s going
to happen is you won’t beat the leading
voice you’re going to have the bloggers
and all that so then they went again
with free and then it was great great
great you know now it’s 2008 2009 2010
and then they realized okay long-term
were screwed if we don’t have some kind
of balancing act between free and paid
so now they have whatever subscription
service that they have and for all
intents and purposes it’s working to the
extent that there are a lot of people
signing up for it and then you hear over
the pond where you’re like The Economist
is bragging about we have a million
consumers and you know whoever there are
going to be cases isolated or you know
just pretty normal like the big names of
big institutions where they are going to
be able to command some kind of paid
rate however I think by doing that you
render yourself somewhat obsolete by the
next generation if you take a look just
like as a little like parallel world
let’s say GigaOM GigaOM launches they
have giga home for more initially telco
and internet and all that and then they
launch new TV for video and then they
themselves start writing deeper reports
and then they start charging that you
know so what percentage of their
audience is going to pay for that
probably very low but ultimately look at
TechCrunch TechCrunch started to blog
one dude blogging it then goes on to
solve for 20 30 million bucks yet
businessweek ended up selling for like
or a million bucks or two million
because it was all this liabilities
right so I just think like you’re going
to see this pattern where the
traditional media companies it’s typical
innovators dilemma they do have to
defend or business and revenues can’t
just come from advertising but they’re
ensuring that they will be pretty much
redundant within a decade and and again
what’s funny is I think American
newspaper groups when I talk to them at
least off the record because now the
executives they’re like their own kids
they see the writing on the wall and
they themselves aren’t you know online
guys they get it they know that print is
that that’s the key they might not want
to pull the plug on print overnight but
they actually know now they’re like you
know and we’re doing this on that
because prince is that like they’ll
actually say that and you’re like taking
it back oddly enough in Canada it’s like
they don’t really get that like those
famous quote from Warren Buffett he’s
like you know if you had the internet
there’s no way that you’d be like hey
man let’s like go chop some trees you
know hire some trucks take the lumber
print this paper or hire a bunch of you
know they have a lot of trees in Canada
so we’d like to cut them down you know
we have a lot of trees and in many ways
we’re like the most backwards business
country ever which is fine but but the
problem is we still see a very big
difference between American companies
that as much as they might be reluctant
they get the writing on the wall and
then Canadian companies that The Globe
and Mail paid transcontinental one of
the world’s largest printers nearly two
billion dollars for like a 18 year deal
to print shinier newspapers basically I
went to a launch party great sitting
there drinking having snacks and I’m
like I feel like I’m on the Titanic
they’re basically just moving chairs
around I’m like did they actually sign
an 18 1.8 billion dollar deal for shine
your newsprint I wonder how much of that
though was a bad business decision and
how much of it was nepotism
transcontinental owns a lot of
publications I’ve seen them pull a lot
of that kind of thing in between
publications and let’s face it you’ve
been doing business for with them for a
long time they probably traded a few
execs back and forth here and there and
that kind of thing is going to happen
that’s possible but ultimately I just
think you know the big question now is
with the iphone with the ipad you know
what i like we talked about jaan winner
last week
and one or media’s decision to not drink
the kool-aid with the iPad and that it’s
not necessarily going to be the
salvation of newspapers I do think
though that content is increasingly
going to be either promotional as in its
you give it away for free to promote a
person place or thing or its commercial
that it’s very like you know avatar or
HBO and ninety-nine percent of the
content to the world is going to be free
unpaid because there’s good at putting
that out there and free content can work
in a niche and I think that’s what the
Internet has taught us about content in
general is newspapers you know you had
your your front section your sports
section your arts section and so on and
so forth why because you actually had to
print enough stuff on a piece of paper
to make it worth it to deliver to
someone’s house or delivered to the
newsstand well now that we don’t have to
deliver the physical product it doesn’t
make sense to you know lump all these
different things together it actually
makes sense to focus on a single niche
the reason why the new york times in the
Wall Street Journal can get away with
charging as you said the wall street
journal you know people can expense it
that’s kind of their target market the
New York Times is the New York Times but
local newspapers they don’t offer
anything actually they don’t have a
competitive advantage there but where
the competitive Vantage is is that their
local so sure it makes sense for them to
pick up stuff off like The Associated
Press newswire but what they should
really be focusing on is owning their
local territories and if they did that
well I play glekas not among local I
don’t hold on I think if they did it
well they could actually sell
advertising properly maybe I mean look
at what tim armstrong and aol’s doing
with patch I mean local is a tough nut
to crack local is like the the you know
b2b of yesteryear where you think it’s
just like moneymaker and its really a
money pit just to go back to sports and
tell that to groupon but that’s
different ok perfect you set it up
perfectly this is why we should go on
the roll together I think content goes
only make sense when you’re using it to
promote something and then you make
money from something else amazon is an
e-commerce play like groupon is an
e-commerce play but groupon makes sense
local because they’re actually selling
ecommerce you see what I mean amazon is
one of the biggest publishers of content
both user-generated comments and all the
bios and profiles that they have but
that content drives a transaction right
so I think
like talking about now jumping back to
sports and news both very timely kinds
of content but sports is not a commodity
news is a commodity you know as much as
yeah that great shot of the guy you know
who is taking a shoe and throwing it at
Saddam Hussein or George Bush whatever
as much as that’s great and all that
it’s still a commodity you know like it
still news is is basically a commodity
so you know you could you think you can
make money and most of the news is tough
to monetize through advertising anyway
because nobody’s going to run a pre-roll
before a plane hitting a you know a
building or something but but with
sports at least it’s very unique it’s
timely and it’s not a lot to say for
baby no so I think ultimately you
justit’s like Seth Godin in his latest
article he’s like you know the Pyramid
of content you have bespoke you have
mass you have free blah blah blah
ultimately if you’re producing content
understand that it’s it’s it’s a cost of
goods sold it’s a marketing expense so
the ones that can create the best
content for the lowest price like the
objective is best content constraint is
minimize the cost if you can nail that
magical art meets science you know
challenge you’re going to win long int
and long but at the end of the day
content don’t expect people to pay for
it well Haley the bearer of bad knee I
think the fact that people and
apparently they still do this the fact
that people used to write into their
local newspaper lot shows that if you’re
smart about your local content people
will engage and I think if you can get
that level of engagement and using stuff
like Facebook Connect you can get enough
data from them that you can really
custom advertising enough to actually
make it worth sense at that point you
need a technological component either we
need a tech ad targeting company that
can offer these kinds of publications a
cheap solution or these companies got to
develop it in house which doesn’t make
sense and I think that’s why they
haven’t haven’t really gone anywhere yet
and on a quick aside I think something
that people should try going digital
only on a very local level is police
Gazette you know police because that’s
from back in the day it’s super
sensational stuff it’s probably the kind
of local news that people are interested
in the most no one cares about
corruption in City Hall everyone cares
about gangland slayings you just might
be able to pick up enough traffic off of
that to monetize it effectively so maybe
a police cazzette with a small like
actual real news
what the hell do you read in your spare
time final point you mentioned tech
you’re right that’s why New York Times
is saying you know we’re going to make
our first acquisition in a few years and
it’s not probably not going to be a
content deal it’ll probably be a tech
play because they think shiny new object
that we can add to our content will make
a lot their contents not broken their
delivery or the distribution system is
well their model is broke people sign
your content we’re gonna take a short
break come back with lightning round in
the email of the week
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