The Day The Newspapers Shut Down Their Sites

OK, but does that 12 percent make up for the revenue lost on the print side by giving the product online? What good is making $50 if you had to spend $60?

 

Then stop printing your paper.

To have a free internet and a paid newspaper is lunacy.

 

You don't think the local TV stations are currently updating their websites?

And you don't think the local TV stations would be able to afford a couple more web editors at $30K/year if they poached all of the newspaper's online advertisers?

 

I imagine that's exactly what we will do; certainly within 10 years, maybe within five.

 

And they would hire obit writers...
And they would have their talking heads type up all the random BS from a meeting...
And those reporters would go to every planning commission meeting...
And they would have 60-70 column inches every night of high school basketball, with boxes, and not just run the score...

They can only do so much. Right now, they are mostly just posting the text of what the reporter said on the air.

 

That's like saying, "Lifeboats? Oh, we don't need to invest in lifeboats. We're on the Titanic!"

Website or no website, our print product will die in the not too distant future. Would we generate more revenue in the short term if the website didn't exist? Probably, but not nearly enough to make the print product sustainable in the long term.

 

You know, all of that "random BS" hasn't exactly been a gold mine for us lately, so no, I don't imagine they would emulate the minutia of a failed business.

 

You do understand I'm not advocating shutting down the Web forever, correct? But they need to come up with a sustainable business model instead of the bandaid-a-day, patchwork process that's going on right now. It's embarrassing, honestly.

 

mike, I can assure you none of us want anything to do with em.

 

Take a survey of the calls your newsroom receives on a given day about that day's paper.

I will guess they will not be commenting on the placement of the AP story on A5.

 

So, Metin, do you have any idea of the news staffing levels for local TV and radio stations in the United States? Even a rough estimate? If so, tell us.

(Hint: You could look it up. But it will take awhile. Then you could try to figure out how many people are involved in actual newsgathering as opposed to editing or recording of video/audio or simply sitting behind a desk and reading a script. Figuring that out will take you a lot longer. But it will be educational for you.)

Outside the top 10 or so markets, TV stations and their Web sites would be lost without the newspaper. Your point is ridiculous.

 

Problem with withholding your local stories on the Web for two days is that people have come to expect breaking news placed on the Web site. What's lunacy is putting the stories on the Web prior to putting it in the paper.

What a paper should do is post quick updates, or a couple of paragraphs of the story online, then put at the bottom: "Want to read the rest of the story? Buy Tuesday's Podunk Press or a subscription to PodunkPress.com"

I'll use a professional wrestling analogy here. For years, pro wrestling companies would televise mostly one-sided matches, and further their storylines between good guy wrestler and bad guy wrestler. If there was a competitive match, the ending would be inconclusive. The company would say, "Want to see Good Guy get revenge on Bad Guy? Buy a ticket to Friday night's matches!"

As more cable channels came into being, (and the WWE and WCW taking over), the TV shows needed better matches to generate higher ratings. Plus, Pay-Per-Views became more important. So, the WWE and TNA today use the TV shows to hype up their PPVs. The matches are more 'competitive' than 20 years ago for TV ratings, but the companies save their best matches for the PPV.

Strange to say, but the newspaper industry could learn from the professional wrestling industry.