Boston Herald publisher is dreaming

Purcell says people will pay for online content.
http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/2009/10/purcell-herald-to-charge-for-online-content

 

Not when they've grown accustomed to getting it for free.

 

This show has already played. They tried it long ago for their columnists, and it flopped.

 

Why? Is their website making anything like a healthy profit? Is it causing thousands of people to go "Wow - now that I've read the content for free, I'm going to run out and buy a copy!"

If this move causes a single regular reader to drop their subscription, I'd be surprised.

 

The thing is, if the Globe does not go along, the plan is DOA.

Purcell probably is doing it since he's also CEO of Ottaway now, and Murdoch probably will take Ottaway to the paid-site model like he's talking about elsewhere.

 

My thoughts on charging for content----when I go to espn.com and I see a link to a story that really intrigues, only to see the Insiders symbol there indicating it's paid content, I move on. I don't want to read it THAT badly. I just come back to this site and get my jollies writing stuff like this.

 

That's a basic, legit response, though. There are enough alternatives, from free stuff to things people already are paying for (cable TV), that many won't be moved to lay down the plastic to add another monthly charge.

There's no journalist/columnist I'd pay to read only a daily, weekly or monthly basis. And if I can survive without digging into my pocket to get behind the paywall of the paper that covers my favorite teams, then I probably will not pay for anything. I know I've got lots of company in this.

 

If I'm paying for content in Boston, there are about a dozen outlets I'm sending a check to before the Boston freakin Herald.

 

But what if it were like itunes, where they already have your account information, and all you do is click what you want and they charge your card a dime at a time?

People will spend a lot of money (relatively speaking) when they don't feel like they're spending money. Why do you think cruise ships link everything to your room key? "I'm not giving you a MasterCard for that $50 bar bill. It's just my room key."

I can spend $15 in an hour on itunes without even thinking about it. Maybe the same formula would hold true for news content as well. I don't know. What I do know is that sitting around with our thumbs up our collective asses hasn't exactly paid dividends.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you want to download music, there aren't many options, and iTunes is your best. If you want to read about David Ortiz, you can get that at dozens of outlets other than the Herald.

 

In theory, and the Herald is unlikely to live long enough to see the theory validated, because it takes time, the pay content sites will survive while their advertising-dependent solely rivals perish.
Nobody is going to pay for Herald content only. But if it was part of a consortium of newspapers which offered the chance to build your own newspaper equivalents of iPod shuffles, that could work. But it would take years to work.
The only thing we know for sure is that the advertising-revenue free content model for the Internet is not working, and that lots of content is going to disappear. I give Pat, as always, credit for being willing to try things.

 

I've said this before: I think pay models work better at mid-sized dailies where not everything that happens in town is "national news" or covered by the AP also.