Back to the Future
On Monday the Australian Financial Review had an article about analysts predicting a decrease in advertising spend for 2009. According to a table I managed to snatch a glance at all media are going to suffer a reduction in spend except for On-line and Pay TV. Tends to make a pretty clear suggestion about where the eyeballs are – or where they think they are going to be.
Unfortunately there was no analysis about what the On-line spending would consist of, I’m sure they’re just thinking banner ads and more banner ads* as Social Media spending is probably not on the Fin Reviews radar yet. I say that because what happened when I tried to find the article later suggests that the Fin Review may be struggling to come to grips with changes in the on-line world.
The article was of great interest to me so of course I tried to look it up on-line the next day…not only was the it nigh on impossible to find anything in the Fin Review that was not TODAY when I did find other articles I wanted to look at – not download, print, or otherwise extract, just LOOK at – I was informed I would need to get a subscription.
Note to Fin Review – it’s 2008, not 1998.
The New York Times abandoned subscription content in 2007.
If Rupert reckons he can’t extract spondoolas for that content what dark secret are you harbouring to prove otherwise?
There is a fundamental reason why I think it’s a dumb approach.
Follow me here – it gets complex:
Newspapers make money from advertising.
Advertisers pay more for more eyeballs, clicks, action, whatever…just more.
Making it any harder for the reader to get your article (process, cost) means they will go elsewhere for their information (the internet is pretty good for that sort of stuff).
You now have less readers.
And less appeal for advertisers.
What happens next is pretty obvious, isn’t it?
Think you’re safe Fin Review? Bet the Chicago Tribune did too.
(Does anyone else see the irony of a newspaper reporting on a predicted decrease in newspaper advertising spend and then making it harder for a reader to see an article and the associated ads? Or is it just me?)
*And, according to the Nielsen Trust in Advertising report Oct 07,” …only consumer-generated media and branded web sites were trusted by more than half of all consumers. Search engine and banner advertising, along with text ads on mobile phones, each scored at the bottom of the list with fewer than 35 percent of total respondents”.
(Photo by acidcookie)
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Hi Paul,
From the user’s point of view, I agree that the subs model feels outmoded. I suspect that for every 100 people who would benefit in some way from, being able to access a piece of content, only one might be willing to pay – even if it was just a few cents… it’s the hassle factor as much as anything. The otehr 99 are simply lost eyeballs.
But I’d argue that there are exceptions, where a business model does exist for premium content. You mention Rupert Murdoch. In the end he pulled back from fully unlocking the WSJ’s premium content. He ain’t stupid and presumably he and his lieutenants decided that they could make more money – at this stage – from keeping it locked, than from unlocking.
Some of this is because of heritage models. B2B magazines have often used online archive access as a way of maintaining their print subscriptions, for instance. (Buy one, get the other free.) Which makes them afraid of what will happen to print subs if they unlock.
Of course, what happens is that punters go elsewhere to where they can get the info for free. And before the original site knows it, there’s no point in unlocking because the audience has gathered elsewhere.
That’s the danger the Fin faces, with its locked content – is the info valuable enough that people will pay to access it? If it is, good on them. It’s not our right for a media owner to hand over the goodies – unless they have a business model to support it.
Personally though, my suspicion is that in time they’ll unlock.
Cheers,
Tim
Tim I think you’re right that there is a place for premium content models (or Freemium as Chris Anderson would call it).
What I found astounding was the complete disregard for the user experience the Fin Review offered up.
If I had found the article quickly and easily with a substantial preview then purchase option they would have got money from me – probably more than the cover charge for a full edition of the paper.
But they bought so much friction into the transaction I just ended up writing a grumpy post.
Then again, as you point out, if this locked content was valuable and rare enough I’d have gone through whatever I needed to in order to get it.
But I guess that’s the rub in the digital age – what makes for premium content and how long does it stay that way (bit torrent anybody?)
It’s the thing keeping content makers/aggregators of all types up at four in the morning – how do you monetise this stuff now that people expect more and more for free?
Thanks for posting this blog. It certainly helps all levels of marketers.