Star-Advertiser owner David Black was on a panel that opened the 2012 Key Executive Mega-Conference held in San Antonio last week.
But it was another panelist who pointed to the problem with paywalls–they require top notch content.
From News & Tech:
Newspapers that gut their staffs and then put digital subscriber initiatives in place are following a recipe for disaster, said E.W. Scripps Co. CEO Rich Boehne.
“If you are going to launch a paywall, the content better be good,” he told attendees at last week’s Key Executives Mega-Conference. “You can’t take products that we cut and diminish and then put up a paywall.
“What kind of consumer proposition is that?”
Boehne underscored his point: “What is most important is that your products have to be really, really good.”
Boehne also said his company is investing in the products behind the paywall to give readers a reason to subscribe.
Here’s one of the few mentions I found regarding David Black’s viwepoint.
Several groups of small papers commented during sessions that they are centralizing everything “behind the scenes,” including the copy desks, while leaving the “high touch” staff in place to keep local relationships and appearances intact.
In any event, there is a growing consensus that JRC and the SunTimes, may have “taken the beach” by doing the “tough stuff” of shrinking companies by 60 to 70%, in the case of Sun Times, of the former head-count, basically showing how it can be done.
(A notable hold-out against this popular strategy is David Black, president and CEO of Black Press, who defended his print-centric organization, conceding only that “a little diversification is always a good thing,” possibly the understatement of the decade).
More on the conference can be found here.
Meanwhile, business improved for Black’s newspaper chain during 2011, as reflected in partial results reported by Torstar, which owns a minority stake in Black Press.
“Torstar has not recorded its share of Black Press’ results in either 2011 or 2010 as Torstar’s carrying value in Black Press was previously reduced to nil. Torstar’s share of Black Press’s net income would have been $3.3 million in 2011 up from $0.1 million in 2010. $2.3 million of the improvement related to impairment losses recorded by Black Press in 2010. Torstar will begin again to report its share of Black Press’s results once the unrecognized losses ($0.3 million as of December 31, 2011) have been offset by net income or other comprehensive income.”
Extrapolating from Torstar’s 19.35% equity investment in Black Press, the company as a whole made $17 million in 2011, up from $516,796 in 2010. That seems like a healthy turnaround, although still a pretty slim profit margin.
Hopefully some of that profit will get plowed back behind the paywall to yield more subscriber value.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
isn’t the Star Ad paywall something like $1/month?
i think the news i get is a good value for the cost. a lot of it is press release journalism. but where else can you get your press releases aggregated so seamlessly? plus there are still a few reporters on staff that make a difference for our community. and good on them! keep it up.
I think it’s time for “paywall” to stretch its wings. I am going to head over to Foodland and ask them to justify the paywall they’ve erected between the produce department and my car. I’ll be all like, “Mr. Sullivan, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!” Fighting for my right to download vegetables.
Careful Ragnar, the cops have a paywall too…called bail.
I think for most of us it is $50 per year or a little over $4 per month (or free if you subscribe to print). Still a good deal in my book. There are a dozen stories and/or columns each day I can only read in the SA. And you are right about the rest being aggregated nicely. Seems like a lot of people miss that point when they say they can get the rest elsewhere. A convenience more than anything I suppose. According to those Torstar numbers the SA must be doing quite well. Good for them. Since it appears they can afford it now maybe they will bring back some of my favorite comics they left behind in the merge.
Of course, those Torstar numbers include all of Black’s newspapers, in Canada and the U.S., and he has a lot of them. Not sure what part of revenue comes from the Star-Advertiser.
I guess I like the S-A’s sports coverage the most just as I enjoy Oceanic’s pay per view coverage of UH football.
One unfortunate consequence of the SA paywall is the silencing of those for whom the monthly fee would amount to a hardship.
It used to be that even the least affluent Hawaii residents, so long as they were able to access an internet connection at a library, were able to share their own experiences and concerns over the stories of the day with readers of the online version of the SA. Not anymore. Not without giving up a few dollars in trade — the loss of which might be more noticeable in their lives than in the lives of some others. The absence of these voices is a loss for the cause of social justice and for society as a whole. The SA forums haven’t been the same since the wall went up.
I don’t mind paying a reasonable amount for the SA. We desperately need a local newspaper, and it has to be paid for somehow. However, it really angered me when I found out that the subscription was $50 for residents – but only $10 for non-residents. I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. And I also feel that the quality is rapidly going downhill. So many typos! Not to mention the lack of journalism. Simply reprinting a press release from the government is not journalism.
When the paywall went up I thought I’d see if I really needed the online paper. So far I haven’t.
I get national news from other sources. And local news from TV websites. That means I miss the SA photos. But they seriously miss the mark when it comes to photo usage. The “large” versions are not all that detailed (short changing both photographers and the readers) and often what’s not in the print version is also left out of the online version.
Either someone’s not thinking or not making a lot of effort to create a value-added product.
It’s unfortunate that a medium that has so much potential for rich content isn’t being used to its best advantage. It was attempted prior to the move to Restaurant Row. After that it wasn’t taken seriously at all.