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The NYT Paid Content Strategy
January 21, 2010 | Neal | 1 commentSome interesting facts and opinions that you probably didn’t see in the press releases about the New York Times announcing that it is going to go to a premium content model. The thing that I find most interesting is that people are so convinced that this strategy won’t work for the NYT. If you were to ask me if it would work for the Philadelphia Inquirer (my hometown paper growing up) or the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (I lived in ATL for a while too) I’d say “no way” because the content just doesn’t have the same perceived value either locally or nationally. That said, if you’ve ever come across a NYT devotee then you’ll know the difference in the level of loyalty they have compared to consumers of the average metropolitan daily newspaper. There are things like intellectual elitism and status tied up in readership of the NYT that aren’t to be found anywhere else. Maybe the Washington Post has a little of the same vibe but the Times is the clear leader in this sense.
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What does all of this tell me?
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- The pay scheme COULD work – it is by no means a no-brainer but people have proven that they are willing to go to great lengths for this brand so there is SOME scheme that will work if enough tweaking is applied over time.
- Even if it works it is not a panacea for newspapers. As I said, this might work because of people’s devotion to the Times and the fact that it has, over the years, separated itself from other publications in the hearts and minds of readers. If the average metro daily thinks it will be able to follow suit, I have a feeling they are sadly mistaken.
- The Times will STILL need to radically change the way it does business. The linked article above says that the Times employs in excess of 1100 journalists to say nothing of all of the additional staff that goes into things like circulation, ad sales, administration, etc. Wages will no doubt come down but more importantly, they will need to learn to do more with less staff. If you ask me, this has been the biggest failure of “old line” media companies. They haven’t adapted to potentially leaner organizational models that pure-play companies have shown can deliver the same quality for much less.
- Finally, there is some mention of the “membership” or PBS model for supporting some companies. In the case of local, private independents this might have some legs and certainly the Times’ own Freakonomics guys will tell you that the pay-what-you-want model can work but a public company would get crushed with that sort of revenue risk and uncertainty.
Regardless of what anyone may be predicting about the situation, it will be very interesting to see how it plays out once the wall goes up. Stay tuned!
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Cheers – Neal
Tags: Digital, new york times, newspapers, paid content
Article: Being a Digital Content Company
January 8, 2010 | Neal | No commentAmen to the comments found in this article about how media companies should be finding as many channels as possible to get their content in the hands of consumers and finding ways, within that content delivery, to monetize that content regardless of channel.
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In addition to wanting to second this comment, I want to embellish on it by saying that ALL companies should be thinking this way. It is not just true of media companies but retailers should be thinking this way about selling through every channel they can find and other companies should be finding their analogous situations as well whether that be information exchanges or sharing of applications.
Tags: content, Digital, entertainment, media, movies, music, newspaper, paid content, television
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