Newspapers - in a Funny Old World

Turning Content Into Cash

I have just returned from Hyderabad, India, where I attended the WAN-Ifra World Congress and Editor's Forum.

Mark Hollands from the Pacific Area News Media Publishers Association in Australia made me smile when he shared a text message that he had received during the event; it read: "It's a funny old world when the "Ah Ha!" moment of a conference is when someone suggests that they should charge - yes money - for their product."

The value of online content was a recurring theme.

The move toward paid content online has started for real. Rupert Murdoch was the person to bring this inevitability to the mainstream. I predict that most publishers will soon make a charge for some online content - but that readers will be willing to pay a reasonable sum only for content that they cannot get free easily elsewhere.

Marieke van der Donk, principle manager at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, told us that their research shows that readers will be willing to pay 60% of the price of a printed edition for an online newspaper. Time will tell. Online behaviour is not to read ‘cover to cover'. We read only the items in which we are interested. Time is scarce. By searching we effectively create our own ‘individuated' content - but much of this content may not be ‘news', available everywhere, and in time I am convinced that this ‘non-news' information will have to be paid-for, as it should. It has value and it costs someone time and money to create it.

For professional publishers, advertising no longer supports the cost of producing high quality online content. It makes sense therefore that it cannot be consumed free of charge.

Most of us, I predict, will be willing to pay something for content and convenience, but most will pay only small amounts on a daily basis. But this does not solve the real problem, which is advertising. There is just not enough of it to go around all the Web sites and printed products that need advertising to be profitable - or even stay in business. It is a buyers market, and this will not change.

Is price a barrier?
The New York Times' costs $1.50. The Times of India costs only five cents. This means that price is not a barrier to the Times being bought. We were told by Ravindra Dhariwal, CEO Publishing, Bennett and Coleman, the Times of India's owner, that when they reduced the newspaper's cover price by two percent its circulation trebled. He also told the conference that the newspaper saw their brand as the focus of everything they did, but that their readers and their local communities were at the heart of their content.

The success of Times of India, the world's largest English language newspaper, is almost certainly, due to two things; first connecting with its readers. Lots of them. With 4 millions subscribers, and another 5 million single copy sales, they can guarantee advertisers that their messages will reach a very large audience. They also try always to look for the positive aspect in a news story. Not to distort it, but not to be intentionally negative. "The cup is always half full, never half empty", to quote Mr. Dhaiwal. Perhaps editors at other newspapers should take note. We like to be informed, but none of us enjoy being depressed.

Second, a cover price which does not generate a "Can I afford it today?" concern. It is not a matter of either a paper, or a meal.

Relevance
If price is such an important issue, why then have some freesheets failed? I suspect there is just too much media, and for those that have failed that their content was not sufficiently relevant.

Dr. Dieter Shantin, director of WAN-Ifra's Newsplex (which DTI helped get off the ground by being the original sponsor) described his latest newsroom organisation proposal as "Newsroom 4.0 - Audience Targeted Newsroom" (see slide). Similarly Martha Stone, WAN-Ifra's director of The Future of Newspapers Project, espoused a similar theme, making sure that content was relevant to its audience.

It seems to be common sense, doesn't it? Who would spend money to create and deliver products that are not of particular interest to the receiver? I know we usually find some content of interest - but you get the general point.

Before you can target content accurately you have to know a lot about the individuals that make-up your audiences. What was not fully explained by the speakers was how to gather and profitably use that data. DTI solutions enable what these speakers were suggesting is essential for survival. Targeting relevance.

Google collects only audience search behaviour, and then uses newspapers' content freely, providing, it would argue, hits as payment. Gavin O'Reilly, president of WAN-Ifra, as well as CEO of Independent News and Media, stated "you can't take hits to the bank". There is a fundamental disagreement between some publishers and Google and other search engines, about whether content being put in the public domain online, and is therefore freely available, retains the author and publisher's copyright.

Paul McGuinness, for more than 30 years manager of U2, ‘the world's biggest band', and campaigner for musical copyright, has just seen the band stream a live concert, watched by 10 million viewers, over YouTube. So why give away a live concert? In an interview with the FT's Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson he says: "We don't quite give it away. YouTube will pay royalties to Universal Music, U2's record label and publisher, and share advertising revenues." The music industry, just like the news media industry, illustrates that if content is valuable and relevant to an audience, advertising will follow.

If anyone reading this wants to learn how to turn content into bankable cash, or share their ideas, start by e-mailing info@dtint.com

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