blogbrainsmallSeacoast History Blog #99
November 7, 2010

As the guy with one of the “alternative” Portsmouth Web sites, I’ve been getting an earful from people about the Portsmouth Herald’s decision to begin charging for access to their Web site this month. There’s no real comparison. My site is run by a staff of one and posts a single article per day. The Herald is the local newspaper of record, a multi-million dollar operation with dozens of employees, and a spanking new facility out at Pease Tradeport. The only connections are that we both focus on this region, we’ve both been online for about 15 years, and until now, our Web sites have both been free. I write a history column for the Herald, but I hope that doesn’t color my opinion. And my opinion is this – I think it’s about time they started charging a fee. So raise the flag and fire off the cannon, because for once, Rupert Murdoch and I agree on something. (Continued below) 

 

(NOTE: After ir appeared here, the Seacoast Media Group, owners of the Portsmouth Herald, asked permission to run the following commentary on the front page of their Sunday newspaper. Permission was granted, and it also aooears on their Web site that has now moved to a paywall format.)

I burned up considerable calories discussing this topic this week. It is a big deal. As we all know, most newspapers give away their paper content online and it’s killing them. As paper subscribers decline and costs rise, these companies are being forced to give away their content. Forced by whom? Forced by the sudden and powerful conventions of the evolving Internet media where a new generation of consumers wants everything free, fast, and perfect. I fell into this trap in 1996 and have been trying to dig myself out of it ever since. Before the dot-com bubble burst, we all thought advertisers were going to rush to the Internet. They did, but they built their own Web sites. Unless you have millions of visitors a day, it’s hard to make money online. Even YouTube is still trying to figure it out.  

Pay_Web_SitesI got in for a penny, posting a little bit a day with a few loyal sponsors for a few thousand daily readers. The Herald was in for a pound, or a ton, with tens of thousands of page views. The paper supported the Web site, at first, which was simply another way of disseminating the news. Then along came the Internet generation, laptops, hand held wireless devices, ebooks, iPhones – you know the song. And with that came the decline in newspaper subscribers, reductions in journalists and support staff, and the rise of cable media, blogs, alternative news outlets, and on and on. A few tough publications like the Wall Street Journal managed to charge for their online content. Others, like the Christian Science Monitor, folded up their paper editions and went strictly digital.  

The rest of us continued to give it away. I stayed alive by staying small and focused. The newspaper built a bigger and bigger online site and searched for ways to “monetize” the increasing flow of content. The bigger and better the content got, the more people started turning to it daily. Now Seacoast Media Group wants to charge a modest fee (about $60 a year, compared to nearly $200 for the paper version) for its online content. That seems immensely fair to me – a little more than a dollar a week for roughly the same content delivered to wherever in the world you want to read it, without the paper.  

From the comments I’ve been getting, the reaction seems to be split 50-50. But the reaction is strong. People either like the idea or hate it. I’ve spoken to those who believe they have some sort of constitutional right to get free news. Those people need to wake up and smell the printer’s ink. Sure there have been free weeklies around here for decades. I used to write for the Rockingham Gazette, Portsmouth Magazine (the newspaper), the NH Gazette, and more. The Wire is great. We have a healthy cluster of glossy specialized publications. But these publications do not have the staff or the content to cover daily news 365-days a year. These are supplemental publications. They exist because the daily paper is there – there to expand on, criticize, and feed off. We, and I include myself, are the sucker fish, the remora of the media, and we owe our niche markets to the big fish. Real newspapers – the kind with news – haven’t been free in these parts since Daniel Fowle moved his printing press to Portsmouth in 1756.  

Continue PORTSMOUTH HERALD MOVES TO PAY WEB SITE


 

SeacoastOnline.com Moves to Pay Model (Continued)

On the other side of the coin are the rational types who understand that newspapers are a business. Reporters like to eat too. They want to raise babies and drive cars and live in houses. It isn’t easy. Journalism jobs pay poorly. The rate for freelancers hasn’t gone up since I started in this business in the 1970s. Name me another career (besides being a musician) that has not gone up a nickel in 30-40 years. And worse, newspapers are still tossing out sandbags and cutting off staff in an effort to stay profitable, even as we, the free niche media, eat their lunch.  

So half of the critics I know agree that it’s about time that the local daily started charging for its online edition. Maybe it will get better, hire more reporters, do more investigative journalism – okay, let’s not get carried away. But maybe they will stay alive and keep reporting the news.  

I am absolutely fascinated to see what will happen. My guess is that most people who get the paper-paper will continue to do so. They will curse and complain, but they are hooked on the daily news and the likeable new layout. They are a dying breed, however. Older people tend to want paper. Younger readers are happy with the online site. My guess is that they will balk. The responsible ones will step-up and pay the online fee – those who run businesses, or have civic pride, or are raising kids. Some younger readers may be okay with the online payment system that allows them to pay painlessly online, but the “everything online should be free” crowd are the dangerous ones here. If they don’t opt-in, then online viewership will drop and advertising will suffer. The one good thing about free sites is that they generate millions of page views, and that pleases advertisers who are willing to pay particles of a penny for each viewing of their online ads.

 The important people are the many out-of-towners who have an affiliation with Portsmouth or a love and want to check in regularly. All those people I’ve spoken to mention the obituaries. They check almost daily, they say, to see who’s newly dead. This implies an older audience, and oldsters are the ones most likely to pay a few bucks to keep in touch. By charging for its online content, SMG will shake out those who really care about the Seacoast from the merely curious. This will be the ultimate test.  Who will ante up, support their city newspaper, and stay connected? Who will gripe and grumble and slink around online for alternative information?  

I don’t know. I can’t wait to see. My guess is that there are a thousand, maybe a few thousand readers willing to pay the piper. I’m not privy to the stats. I don’t get invited to editorial pow-wows, but I assume that if the print circulation holds steady, and the online advertising does too, then a few thousand paying Internet readers will plug the leaking newspaper industry for a few years to come. By then it will be a brave new world. At worst, the pay site will discourage existing subscribers from jumping ship in a tight economy. Those who want to stay informed, will stay because there really is no option. The Boston media doesn’t do our region justice, nor does our statewide media.  

Pay_Web_02Most Web sites get the lion’s share of their visitors, not from regular subscribers, but from Internet searches. At least that’s true for me. People searching for specific topics on Google particularly will still be able to see a few pages of the Portsmouth Herald. It’s only when they hit four pages that they will be told that this is a subscription site and the rest of the content will be blocked. At that point, as I understand it, they can register and see up to 10 pages a month. This feature may force the obituary/headline freaks to check in weekly instead of daily, but that can’t be a very satisfying experience. At any moment the freebie-reader may get shut off like a drunk at a bar. And that’s the whole point, Just as you start getting happy, you’re cut out – or you break down and buy an online subscription – first a single week, then more and more. I don’t know if that model will work, but it’s worth a try.  

This will play havoc with those of us who routinely refer readers to the SMG Web site. In my case, for example, I post about 20 links per day that connect my readers to the daily news. That won’t work with a pay site. 

The big flaw in the new pay model is the current plan to charge existing paper subscribers a surcharge to get full access as an online user. That is a mistake, and 100% of the people I talked to said the same. I say that as a paper subscriber who also uses the Web version SeacoastOnline.com. Sometimes my wife takes the paper to work before I get up. Sometimes I forget to take it off the front steps. Sometimes I’m in one place and my paper is in another, or I want to send a copy of an article to my friends and family. Or I want to look for breaking news (which will be a great bonus for online subscribers) or I want to check a fact from an archived article. Paper subscribers will expect to get more for their higher rate, not less. But I assume that bug will shake itself out in time.  

We live in an era of crabby people who get more and more and appreciate it less and less. Almost everything, from my view, is better than it used to be – healthcare, cars, safety, security, technology, TV, food – you name it, I like it. But as Lincoln almost said, you can’t please most of the people most of the time.  

If most of the people want free news, then they will get what they pay for. And yes TMZ, I’m talking about you.

 

Copyright © 2010 by J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.

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Local Daily Wants You to Pay for News Online