The Fate of The Free Newspaper

jm92956n writes "We've all become accustomed to the wide availability of newspapers and other media online, almost all of which is available for free. Today, however, The New York Times (free registration required; how ironic!) is running an article that questions the long term viability of that business model. Interestingly, the Times now has more online readers than print readers. Is the era of free news content about to end?"

Can't beat the Beeb.

[caluml]

You can't beat the good old BBC [bbc.co.uk]. They even have pages in many different languages [bbc.co.uk]. And because they don't rely on advertising, they don't have to suckle on the corporate teat. Get your (pretty much) unbaised news here.

Reg free link

[bendelo]

Reg-free link [nytimes.com]

Re:Payment is the problem

[mirko]

Some newspaper [courrierin...tional.com] actually let you access all of their online articles using a code they send you when you subscribe to their paper edition. I think this is the most interesting way to develop this : it helps the paper edition to survive while adding value to the subscription.

If people want free, they'll get it...

[MatrixCubed]

One thing I've gleaned from years of webbernetting, is that if people *really* want something free, they'll get it for free. Whether it comes down to complaining enough to get news vendors to return their 'product' to a free model (less likely) or moving on to a free source (more likely), there's *always* a free alternative.

Re:No it's not about to end

[minkie]

That depends. If the service is a commodity (you can get essentially the same quality product from any vendor), then certainly price becomes the only differentiator (and there's no better price than free). But, the NY Times is not a commodity. The quality of the writing, and the depth of the news gathering organization sets it apart from others in the field. If I want commodity news, I'll read the AP newswire (and even that isn't free). Some people claim that the NY Times has a liberal bias to their news reporting. Even assuming that were true, that's still a differentiator which sets them apart :-) The rule of thumb in the newspaper business is that the revenue from sales of the paper pays for the actual production costs (paper, ink, running the presses, delivery to newsstands, etc). Looking at their most recent financials (http://nytco.com/pdf-reports/2004-ar10K/cons-stmt s-of-income.pdf), that appears to be vaguely true. Circulation revenue was $0.9B, and total production costs were $1.5B. Advertising revenue was $2.2B. They make a lot more money from selling ads than selling newspapers. I used to buy the NY Times (paper edition) almost every day. At today's prices, 5 days a week plus Sunday, minus some subscriber discount, figure I'd be spending $150-200/year on the paper. The WSJ charges $79/year for full access. If the NY Times were to charge that same amount, it would be a bargain. The hard thing to figure out is if enough people will actually pay for it that way. Full disclosure: I own a few shares of NYT.

Re:Free registration still cost you!

[FuturePastNow]

For news sites, you can usually also use RefSpoof for Mozilla/Firefox. Set "http://news.google.com" as your fake referrer, since most news sites bypass registration on pages linked from Google News.

For non-news registration sites, like forums, you'd probably be better off with a free email address you don't care about.

ComputorEdge

[TooLazyToLogon]

One of the best online computer magazines is not only free online, but so is the hard copy. It is supported by advertisement, but in the online version you really have to look for the ads. In fact if I'm going to make a computer related purchase, it is easier to pick up a hard copy and browse the advertisements there. They have been around since the '80s in just about the same form. Of course the online version has gone through some changes since the advent of the web.

The Economist

[Anonymovs Coward]

It should work like the Economist.com. Most material is free excepting the business intelligence

No, most material there is not free. Perhaps the front page looks that way, but try clicking on "current issue".

But you're right, they have a terrific business model. They got me hooked with the free stuff and eventually I got tired of not being able to read the rest and subscribed. And I'm not alone: they recently hit the million subscriber mark.

I certainly wouldn't subscribe to the NYT if it tried that stunt, but I'm sure there are people who would. In fact, there may be people who already do, to read the archives.

Re:Irony vs Coincidence

[nine-times]

Well, technically, coincidence only means 'things that happen together'-- or any occurrence of things which co-incide.

It became a common usage to talk about things which seemed connected but were not as "mere coincidence", meaning the fact that they happened together only indicated that they happened together, and nothing else. However, this grew into a colloquial use of the word "coincidence", all by itself, to mean "an occurrence of multiple events which seem connected but are not," which is, perhaps, the most common usage.

Irony, on the other hand, has many senses. The generally accepted idea behind irony is that what occurs somehow opposes what was expected to occur. Therefore, a coincidence can be ironic if it is somehow unexpected or contrary to intuition.

Perhaps ironically, the association of "coincidence" and "ironic" as synonyms may have come from conventions of ironic (sarcastic) speech-- i.e. the phrases "what a coincidence..." and "that's ironic..." can both be spoken sarcastically to emphasize that two events are connected in exactly the way they seem to be.

Re:Payment is the problem

[R.Caley]

No different from cost of collecting it from the forest

But they don't collect from forrests, but from plantations. In a plantation it comes in huge lumps carefully arranged in neat lines for easy collection. No picking up small amounts from each of a million suppliers.

Most paper is bleached whatever the source.

But trees aren't treated with dyes specially designed to be hard to remove. It's much easier to get rid of a slight yellowish tinge in fresh wood pulp than to get rid of colour-fast inks.

I believe the biggest problem is that once you've used the stuff once, the fibers are mashed and broken, so turning it back into pulp, giving it a heavy chemical treatment and then into paper results in poor quality paper. The best use, other than bog-roll, is to mix it with new wood pulp to make it go further.