Content and Distribution — AEJMC Hot Topics

Can Content Paywalls Work?

March 17, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Today Arthur Ochs Sulzberer Jr., publisher of the New York Times, sent out a letter to readers about the impending access changes for its online users. The letter says that online users will be able to read 20 articles a month (including slide shows and videos) but after that the wallets need to come out. Mobile users accessing NYT from their smartphone or tablet will be able to read top news stories from the NYT app but will have to pay beyond those stories.

The changes will hit U.S. users later this month. Print subscribers will have access to all of the online content (similar to the Economist’s system). You can find out all the details, costs, etc. on their access FAQ page.

The question is, will it work? Do you think that this is the new way for online content, a big mistake, or a non-issue? Let us know in the comments or take our poll.

View poll results

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Content and Distribution, New Media, Newspaper, poll, Traditional Media, Web

Ad Spending up in 2010

March 17, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Advertising spending increased 6.5% in 2010 up from 2009, reports Stuart Elliot from the New York Times. Ad spending had fallen in 2009 with the economy suffering.

The newspaper category was the only one to still have a decline in 2010. Read the full story here

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Advertising, Content and Distribution, Newspaper

News Paywalls – Should They Cost Less in Poorer Countries?

March 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

From Columbia Journalism Review on March 16 – Consumers have made peace with the fact that some things cost more in certain places. A cup of black coffee at a Cairo McDonald’s costs less than the same stimulant at a McDonald’s in Manhattan. A night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus costs $445, while in Maui it’ll set you back nearly $1,000.

I wonder, then, whether online news organizations must charge the same amount for their product in every nook of the earth, and whether globally scattered news audiences would tolerate variable pricing. It seems unreasonable that someone in Burundi be asked to pay the same price for a product as a consumer in Singapore. Shouldn’t the cost of online news also vary in these countries? Read More

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Content and Distribution, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Media Ethics, New Media

When Using Blogs as Sources Gets Dangerous

March 15, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

From NYT Public Editor’s Journal on March 1, 2011 - Kate Zernike, in her report on Michelle Obama’s effort to promote breast-feeding, went to the blogs to canvas political comment. There, she found a surprising number of people crossing political boundaries to express support or opposition.

But reader Michael Denham of Boston questioned the quality of the sourcing of the story, as did other readers who contacted the public editor’s office. Mr. Denham noted a quote in the story that was attributed only as “one person on a blog” – and an anonymous one at that. Read more

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Blogging, Content and Distribution, sources

Has the NYT Picked the Right Time for a Pay Model?

March 15, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

From Newsonomics March 14, 2011 - Timing may not be everything, but it’s a lot in life, and the New York Times could have not have picked a better time — soon – to launch both its new paid plans and new tablet product.

Why? Well, the world’s conspired to wait, along with the rest of us, for the Times’ 14-month gestation period to conclude, since it announced a new pay plan, way back in January, 2010, seemingly another age. Let’s just tick off the can-you-believe-this context for the Times’ imminent launch. Read more.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Content and Distribution, Newspaper, paid content, Traditional Media

Study: Newspapers Sink Below Internet and TV as Information Sources

July 29, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Editor & Publisher, Mark Fitzgerald | [...] The study found that just 56% Internet users ranked newspapers as important or very important sources of information for them, down from 60% in 2008 — and below the Internet (78%) and television (68%).

And while newspapers also regard themselves as being in the entertainment business, just 29% of users consider them as important sources of entertainment, down from 32% two years ago, and last among principal media. [Read more...]

Filed Under: News, Research Tagged With: Content and Distribution, E-Readers, Entertainment Studies, Internet, Jeffrey I. Cole, Newspaper, Traditional Media, TV, USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism

CJR: The Rise of Private News

July 23, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Chrystia Freeland discusses niche news models and the costs associated with private news at CJR:

[...] Some of the companies faring best in the news business today have built an entirely different model, what we might call private news, and are working on an entirely different balancing act. Their challenge is to determine the right mix of focused, professional content—sold to a relatively small client base, usually bundled with data, for extremely high rates—with consumer content, which brings in less money but reaches a bigger audience. [Read more...]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Chrystia Freeland, Columbia Journalism Review, Content and Distribution, Paywalls, Private News

The push for paywalls mischaracterizes the nature of online newspaper readership

July 20, 2010 By AEJMC 1 Comment

As U.S. newspaper publishers increasingly talk of building paywalls around their online content to ward off free-riders cannibalizing their print product, new research suggests that such efforts may backfire because most local users of local newspaper sites already are paying customers—by paying for the print edition.

A study published in the latest issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly found that two-thirds of visitors to local newspaper websites are “hybrid” readers—that is, they regularly read the print edition (and most of them pay for it) as well as the online version—in contrast to the remaining one-third of “online-only” readers. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: Content and Distribution, Hisang Iris Chyi, International Journal on Media Management, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Media Economics, Mengchieh Jacie Yang, Nan Zheng, Newspaper, Paywalls, Print, Seth C. Lewis, Traditional Media, University of Texas at Austin, Web

NYT: In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger

July 19, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Jeremy Peters | [...] Such is the state of the media business these days: frantic and fatigued. Young journalists who once dreamed of trotting the globe in pursuit of a story are instead shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way.

Tracking how many people view articles, and then rewarding — or shaming — writers based on those results has become increasingly common in old and new media newsrooms. The Christian Science Monitor now sends a daily e-mail message to its staff that lists the number of page views for each article on the paper’s Web site that day. [Read more...]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Content and Distribution, Future of..., Google, News Media, Newspaper, Politico, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Virtual Worlds