If Newsday is the benchmark, The New York Times is in trouble.
I’m used to filing away random stats while listening to sports radio, but I didn’t expect then to involve newspaper readers. But then I learned that Newsday has accumulated 35 subscribers since James Dolan (who also owns Madison Square Garden and the hapless Knicks) bought the publication and decided to put all the paper’s online content behind a paid firewall. That’s right: 35 people in three months.
Let’s state the obvious up front: Dolan is a terrible businessman. He’s the same guy who refused to fire Knicks coach Isaah Thomas even after he was found by a court to have sexually harassed one of his employees. So it’s not really a surprise that he’s driving another business into oblivion.
I think the Newsday story is relevant to the broader question of whether people are willing to pay for content. And my guess is yes–if it’s good content. The Freemium model isn’t about free; it’s about moving people from free services to premium (paid) ones. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Business Journals, and a few other select newspapers are likely to survive as online publications because they’ll figure out price points and revenue streams. And because, unlike Newsday, they have something we want to read.
Photo by wili_hybrid (Flickr).
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I won’t argue whether Newsday’s content is worth paying for, but I think the biggest obstacle to people paying for content is the availability of free, quality content. Few people are going to pay for something they can get for free elsewhere. I do think there will be those willing to pay for the NYTimes content because it is perceived as unique, but unless all high quality news sites start charging I just don’t see this being a money maker.
I agree; it’s only likely to be viable for those few newspapers that are best in business. And probably one or two publishers who figure out how to aggregate local news and sports, as this is the real differentiator for many newspapers.