Our local paper, the Oregonian, which first sought voluntary subscribers a la public radio, now uses a hybrid model with some articles behind a paywall. I’ve forwarded your post to the editor.
Funny thing about public radio, though. Everywhere I’ve been the local NPR affiliate has the highest ad rate card in the region. Talk about having it both ways’
I appreciate the inclusion of equity issues in this discussion. It's disappointing that the new Baltimore Banner has chosen a subscription model, not only because it's a dubious business model but because Baltimore is 60+ percent Black and has a high poverty rate. I suspect Bainum/number crunchers were thinking only about the spreadsheet version of how to structure this and if that is the case, it kinda displays a certain failure to read the room over the past few years. Startups have the opportunity to do better and it's frustrating when they whiff from the jump.
Disagree, Dick, on "regional" papers that are stand-alones, and paywalls. Let's go to the world of magazines. Counterpunch, to be precise, because that's how I swing politically. It now has Counterpunch+. All of that is paywalled. The rest is still free.
Newspapers could easily do similar. They probably won't, because most print media shot itself in the foot on this since Dean-o (I worked at one of his sites), wearing his hat as AP board chair, talked about "TV model" in the early 1990s even though pay cable channels had existed for years.
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Disagree also on community papers (which, IMO, have shot themselves worse in the foot in some ways than dailies, even smaller one). No freebies. And, your site is like the WSJ, where no more than 50 words, counting the header, show up. (Apple-A + Apple-C get around other types of paywalls.) I know some newspaper companies that do this. THEY are the ones you should applaud.
Or better yet, if you're a non-daily? If you're lucky, you resisted the website path in the first place. Yeah, we're a small minority, but some of us are still out there.
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On the discomfiture issue, is this any more, or less, than papers had in the long-ago or semi-long-ago past with advertisers, despite claims that advertising and editorial were on opposite sides of a wall?
Thanks for a good rundown that reminds us of important issues, Dick. I plan to post it on The Rural Blog.
Our local paper, the Oregonian, which first sought voluntary subscribers a la public radio, now uses a hybrid model with some articles behind a paywall. I’ve forwarded your post to the editor.
Funny thing about public radio, though. Everywhere I’ve been the local NPR affiliate has the highest ad rate card in the region. Talk about having it both ways’
I appreciate the inclusion of equity issues in this discussion. It's disappointing that the new Baltimore Banner has chosen a subscription model, not only because it's a dubious business model but because Baltimore is 60+ percent Black and has a high poverty rate. I suspect Bainum/number crunchers were thinking only about the spreadsheet version of how to structure this and if that is the case, it kinda displays a certain failure to read the room over the past few years. Startups have the opportunity to do better and it's frustrating when they whiff from the jump.
Disagree, Dick, on "regional" papers that are stand-alones, and paywalls. Let's go to the world of magazines. Counterpunch, to be precise, because that's how I swing politically. It now has Counterpunch+. All of that is paywalled. The rest is still free.
Newspapers could easily do similar. They probably won't, because most print media shot itself in the foot on this since Dean-o (I worked at one of his sites), wearing his hat as AP board chair, talked about "TV model" in the early 1990s even though pay cable channels had existed for years.
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Disagree also on community papers (which, IMO, have shot themselves worse in the foot in some ways than dailies, even smaller one). No freebies. And, your site is like the WSJ, where no more than 50 words, counting the header, show up. (Apple-A + Apple-C get around other types of paywalls.) I know some newspaper companies that do this. THEY are the ones you should applaud.
Or better yet, if you're a non-daily? If you're lucky, you resisted the website path in the first place. Yeah, we're a small minority, but some of us are still out there.
==
On the discomfiture issue, is this any more, or less, than papers had in the long-ago or semi-long-ago past with advertisers, despite claims that advertising and editorial were on opposite sides of a wall?
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On the DRC? As I've already written, this deal would have been better when there was more newspaper to save. The "integration work" is going to involve some pretty heavy lifting. https://beloblogging.blogspot.com/2022/09/kera-to-buy-dead-carcass-of-denton.html