The Five Easy Pieces model for newspaper subscriptions

We have the New York Times delivered to us on Sunday morning. It's a nice tradition, letting us pick at the major sections, including the magazine, book reviews, and opinion pages. With that subscription, I also get All Digital Access that includes web, tablet, and phone access for the whole week.
Increasingly, though, I find that I'm reading the stuff online a day or two before the paper arrives. The Times online editions start showing on Thursday. Something might be posted on Twitter or someone else's blog includes a link to a story that's destined for print on Sunday.
As a result, there are weeks when I've already read the pieces of interest and the paper goes straight to the recycling bin.
Maybe, I thought, I could save a tree and just get the digital editions.
The digital editions cost $8.75 per week. Home delivery of the Sunday paper, which includes the digital access, costs $8.10 per week.
I save 65¢ by throwing the paper away.

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Full disclosure: I am a contracted employee of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, a company formerly owned by the New York Times. A most wonderful benefactor, John Henry, recently purchased the T&G along with the Boston Globe. The Globe has a more sensible policy, allowing me to pay a lower price for digital-only.

Predictions about the future of the news business

We just finished our WISE course on the future of the news business. For the last class, I made four predictions and told the class that we'd review them in April of next year.
Here they are:

• CNN is toast.


• One or more major magazines will cease print operations because of postal rate hikes. (Newsweek).


• One or more major daily newspapers in the Northeast will cease printing on one or more days per week.


• Worcester will have no local radio news and no one will notice.

Wither the funnies of Sunday

Most of the time, I favor the present and future over the past. I think that, overall, we are making things better for ourselves and for the next generations. You can call me naïve, but I won't answer. We've eradicated diseases, brought freedom to more people in more places, and even reduced the amount of violence in the world. In spite of what you might hear from political campaigns or from the pulpit, life is getting much better for many more.

So, why, for all of our great wisdom and talent, have the Sunday funny pages become a cruel mockery of past glories?

Here's what you get now:

[caption id="attachment_3368" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Boston Sunday Globe - 1 Apr 2012 (click to enbiggen)"][/caption]

Here's what you got in April 1970 (via Whirled of Kelly - Play Ball!)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="220" caption="Pogo full-page Sunday comic - 5 Apr 1970 (click to enbiggen)"][/caption]

It wasn't just Walt Kelly's great talent for writing and drawing that made these strips so stunning. The newspapers published them, giving over a whole page to a single comic. The papers had to pay good money to do this. The papers of old made money by believing that the public were worthy of this rich nectar. The papers of new are surprised that modern readers don't savor comics made of high-fructose corn syrup.

Why are we reading about this in the Wall Street Journal

In Massachusetts Takes Aim at Red Tape, the WSJ tells us about Gov. Deval Patrick's plan to simplify the ways in which businesses do business. Under the cleanup project, announced to state workers on Friday, the state will eliminate 150 admittedly silly regulations that get in the way. Review of another 800 regulations is continuing. For example, if the owner of a hair salon wants to transfer ownership to an employee , the salon would have to close while the transfer paperwork was being processed. It's a good story about the state and the governor.

There is no story about this project  in the Worcester Telegram, Boston Globe, or Boston Herald. But, Saturday's Telegram had two (1,2)stories about Cee Lo Green set up shop in Las Vegas.

Online newspapers not ready for the web

The Boston Globe introduced its HTML5 paywalled edition in October. The paper works well on a variety of devices, including the iPad. It's easy to read and navigate. We have free access to the online version because we subscribe to the Sunday print edition. (Some papers, including the New York Times, are seeing a slight increase in the number of print subscriptions because of the online paywall.)

The content, however, hasn't made the jump. Two stories in today's paper illustrate the problem. Scott Kirsner's Is the price right? Mobile apps can help you find out story profiles several interesting mobile phone apps that let you make quick price comparisons while you're out shopping. The online version would be more useful if there were links to the app's website or to the iTunes Store and Android Market.
Similarly, On the Hot Seat with Martin Romitti by Megan Woodhouse mentions that Romitti, director of the UMass Donahue Institute's Economic and Public Policy Research, was editor of "the UMass journal on the economy" without naming the publication or providing a link. It took a while to locate MassBenchmarks.

A web-first editorial policy could mitigate these issues. Writers and editors would realize that the story isn't complete unless it's sourced with links.

[Full disclosure: I am a part-time correspondent and blogger for Telegram Towns, an online publication of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. Both the T&G and Boston Globe are owned by the New York Times. ]

What is a newspaper?

A post on my other blog - Parallel Eagles: What is a newspaper?

First thoughts on the Telegram kinda-sorta paywall

T & G plans paid website

• It would be nice (dreamer that I am) that this increased revenue stream would allow the Telegram to improve local content and not just stem the losses associated with producing the same stuff.
• People will choose to do without the news if the perceived value isn't there. As I've often noted couple of smaller dailies, the Athol Daily News and Gardner News, charge a ridiculously high price for their content. As much as I want to keep up with the goings-on in the north county, $80-100/year is more than I'm willing to pay.  
• In a typical newspaper, the advertising pays for the content and the price at the newsstand or paid for home delivery pays for just that - delivery. It's fair to expect newspapers to be able to recoup production costs on web versions, but web content delivery is an order of magnitude less expensive than print production. (It might be even be less.) As a result, prices for web delivery should be that much less expensive than print versions.
  
• This threshold-payment system is a reasonable compromise for the casual reader, as is the offer of free access for print subscribers. 
• Keeping obituaries and local blogs (ahem) free is a good thing. I suspect that there are a lot of web readers who used to live in the Worcester area or who are part-time residents (snowbirds) who rely on the obits as an important connection to the area.

First thoughts on the Telegram kinda-sorta paywall

T & G plans paid website

• It would be nice (dreamer that I am) that this increased revenue stream would allow the Telegram to improve local content and not just stem the losses associated with producing the same stuff.
• People will choose to do without the news if the perceived value isn't there. As I've often noted couple of smaller dailies, the Athol Daily News and Gardner News, charge a ridiculously high price for their content. As much as I want to keep up with the goings-on in the north county, $80-100/year is more than I'm willing to pay.  
• In a typical newspaper, the advertising pays for the content and the price at the newsstand or paid for home delivery pays for just that - delivery. It's fair to expect newspapers to be able to recoup production costs on web versions, but web content delivery is an order of magnitude less expensive than print production. (It might be even be less.) As a result, prices for web delivery should be that much less expensive than print versions.
  
• This threshold-payment system is a reasonable compromise for the casual reader, as is the offer of free access for print subscribers. 
• Keeping obituaries and local blogs (ahem) free is a good thing. I suspect that there are a lot of web readers who used to live in the Worcester area or who are part-time residents (snowbirds) who rely on the obits as an important connection to the area.

We know that you're the customer, but ...

From the The Gardner News.

Not, "Here are the deadlines to help you plan your advertising publication schedule." Nah, it's about us, our needs, our timetable.
Oh, and, if you want to see the classified advertisements online, you can pay us $15/year if you are already a subscriber to the print edition and $84/year if you want web access only.

The Gardner News is a family-owned business, so its financials aren't available for review. Wikipedia reports that the paper had an average daily circulation of just north of 6,000 in 2006. Apparently, this circulation level and the strange web-access policy are keeping the paper afloat. Reminding us that it doesn't have to make sense; it only has to make money.