Beginning Wednesday, most of Newsday.com content will only be available to subscribers of Optimum Online, Newsday, or those willing to pay for it.
Those who are not customers of Optimum Online or the newspaper – both owned by Bethpage-based Systems Corp. – will have to pay a $5 weekly fee. However, nonpaying customers will have access to some of newsday.com’s information, including the home page, school closings, weather, obituaries, classified and entertainment listings. There also will be some limited access to Newsday stories.
Newsday described the move as one that would create a “pioneering Web model,” combining the newspaper’s newsgathering services with Cablevision’s electronic distribution capabilities.
Would not pay $2.60 for a year. Sorry but get some advertising and cut staff if you want to survive. Their is enough free news out there to prevent this business model from ever getting off the ground.
Maybe for the new york post. Not for newsday.
I have a Kindle. I just finished a 12,000 page book. I tried several newspaper and magazine subscriptions using the 14 day trial, and canceled them all. Three things:
The online editions all SUCK. No pictures, abbreviated content.
The news is very badly reported. Even The WSJ is getting terrible.
And finally, reading the news just pisses me off.
So I just read literature and history on my Kindle, and avoid the Big BO express as much as possible.
I am sure many people like reading news. I don’t.
The way the dollars going $260 may be worth 2.60 Euros.
Didn’t NY Times try something like this a few years ago and fail! So far only WSJ has been able to make this sort of work.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Newspapers are providing online content for free, but for how long? No one can provide their product for free indefinitely. Either they’re going to have to figure out an advertisement model or they will have to charge. Craigslist gutted the classified ads, which used to bring in a lot of revenue. If newspapers go under, the free content they provide will go away and we’ll have nothing. We’ll have no idea what our government is doing, no idea what the big corporations are doing. We’ll have no way of keeping them honest.
The founding fathers knew how important a functioning free press was to our democratic republic. Are we so willing to throw that out?
I don’t know what the solution is, but I don’t want to just let our newspapers and news magazines die.
@#6 No one is asking to do their job for free but to invent a new way of getting income. Ex. how much that Craiglist you mention charges?
As for information, trend is already for independent journalists to report and work by themselves or in loose associations. Much more independent and free reporting than ever. New model. Newspapers (and soon News TV networks) are going the way of Dodo and they should, we won’t miss them.
Now to a detail story does not clarify: Newsday , same as many other papers is on the brink. Cable company wants more of “their own” content to attract customers, paying to keep Newsday alive for it. They do not care about yearly fee readers. The whole point is that Cable company wants this as additional attraction. I am surprised that yearly fee is not 1000$ as for that part they know it will not work even at 10$/year.
Fox News and the DOD are offering up free free newpaper subscriptions.
Looks like a good deal for the sheeple.
I love the thought of perpetual goods or even the thought of Cutting 90% of costs THEN asking for MORE money then before.
so lets see.
take away..
Presses
Personnel to PRINT the papers
NO distribution costs
Basic adverts, along the sides PAY more then those in the paper.
ADVERTS can be set for LOCAL(if they set it up right) advertisers..
Markup and setup for Internet is SIMPLE.
SIZE of a column or article?? is NO LONGER LIMITED by the SPACE of a newspaper.
REPRINTING articles from other sources AP/WORLD NEWS/.. are EASY to add and take NOTHING to add as you can CUT AND PASTE AND AUTO UPDATE the article.
You dont NEED a large building anymore, as you dont need the EQUIPMENT, most reporters can be OUT getting information/news/reviews, Type them into a REMOTE computer and SHIPPED to the offices to be formatted.
All of this is saved in the cost of the paper(online).. THEN they want to charge you AS MUCH as the newspaper(hardcopy)..So who gets the PROFITS?? not you.
The old idea of the PAPER, was that the ADVERTS paid for the paper and wages, and the $ given to the person that DELIVERED the paper, 1/2+ was kept by the person that DELIVERED it.
go look at the nickle arcade papers with ADVERTS all over, and was only a SALES paper.. it was free to everyone EXCEPT the advertisers..
ECA,
I like you, but sometimes you don’t know dick. Web-based ads pay pennies on the dollar that print brought in.
The real problem is that the advertisers are enamored with web-based customer-relationship-management data-mining and lead generation. No advertiser wants to pay any puvblicaiton a penny unless that publication can deliver real customer leads. This is done with custom newsletters and gated sections of a website to capture emails. The advertiser doesn’t pay much for this, either.
In a newspaper, the print was a significant percentage, but not the most expensive. Independent reporters that can followe a story for months cost more than some blogger sitting at their desk reposting AP news items. Fact-checkers and proofreaders also cost money, and were viewed as unneeded overhead in a time of spellcheck.Good editors that know their industry and audience cost as well.
All of the publising industry, regardless of audience size or market segment, has been carved to fit on the procrustean bed the we have created by releasing the web frankenstein without thinking the business models through first.
What I’d like to see is free access to the full online content for subscribers to the Print edition of newspapers. That is, charge the general public for online content, but give the print subscribers a free code, with perhaps the added bonus of being able to squelch the dizzying display of online ads.
Trains magazine does this. I wish the LA Times would, as I’m getting tired of paying for a steadily shrinking newspaper where nearly every article references the website for further information, and the website has so many ads and pop ups that it not only takes forever to load, but it is difficult to even look at. Newspapers are second only to television stations and porn sites in this regard.
#10, Alix,
Once again, a well thought out and written post. You covered my initial concern of the editing but you also quite correctly went far beyond.
My fear is if the newspaper industry dies, all we will be left with are the local bloggers just rehashing what they think. There won’t be an independent voice presenting both sides.
Currently I read only quality news sources on line. I do my best to stay away from obvious biased outlets from both the right and left.
I, too, will not pay for the junk the MSM passes off as news either. Those who depend on the MSM as “message force multipliers” will have to subsidize them to keep them going. It will be a necessary investment in propaganda to maintain their power. Who are they? The Military Industrial Complex, industry lobbyists, the political elite, etc. However, they won’t want to pay for it directly, so it will have to be “reformed” so that the taxpayer will pay for it.
#14 Mr Fusion, the only problem with being a middle of the roader is that you’re dependent on the people who set the endpoints. If one side goes way out on a limb, the “middle” moves accordingly to their side. Thus, if you have right-wingers raving that the president should be “taken out”, the ones who “only” want him to be impeached end up being “moderate” by comparison. Look at your endpoints before putting yourself in the “middle”. As some politician said, there is no middle ground between truth and lies, between sanity and insanity.
Kinda funny that I just got my “final edition” (of my local paper) today. http://twitpic.com/mht2m
It was a weekly from the Las Vegas Sun guys but now its all online, just as it should be.
10,
smart.
And with all those options?? you dont think they wont make money? Then add SIGN IN to read the paper and you gather more info to sell.
There is 1 feature you missed.
LOCAL SALES.
Very few web sites offer local adverts. As a paper they can gather them and make Their OWN for the online version, AS WELL as random nation wide from a service.
They can also offer a section for LOCAL sales and whats available(if they understand this). they can sell space to advert, and make even more money.
Every site I see, FORGETS about local sales. And the big advertisers DONT want them, they want national business’s..
http://www.magicvalley.com/
A site like this could be running adverts around the sides from local business. AND placing special adverts JUST like newspaper inserts, and charging a small fee.
The problem?? is in the LOWER RIGHT SIDE.
the NEWSPAPER didnt produce this. Another company did FOR the newspaper. so they get the money.
The newspapers are dying because they don’t want to survive.
Most of them have a captive advertising market with name brand recognition.
One option would be to convert their newspaper to free and increase the circulation offering universal distribution in their area, like the freebee advertising papers stuffed in everyone’s mailbox.
But in a world where junkmail makes money, this isn’t what the newspapers do.
Instead, they change the price from $0.25 to $1, offer a half-ass web site, throw up a medicore site and then whine when it doesn’t work.
19,
CORRECT..
you get the prize..
Local news papers dont see what COULD BE..
Pay 1-2 persons to set up and run a site and you are set for LIFE..ANd use LOCAL adverts CREATED by the site manager.
This ridiculousness brought to you by the Dolan Group (owners of Cablevision),
the same people who own the NY Knicks and drove them into the ground.
Hey Dvorak! Why not have a phone book death watch too?
The forestry death watch will take acre of itself.
We stopped getting a paper almost 2 decades ago when we realized more were going into the recycle bin unread than we ever had time to look at. Most of the news is horribly biased anyhow, there’s nobody who just wants to tell you what happened anymore, they want to spin the news to match their particular political biases.
No thanks. I won’t take a paper newspaper and I won’t pay for one online. I can get the news for free from a variety of sources and I trust it a lot more than I’d ever trust a print rag.
Hopefully, they all go out of business. It would serve them right.
#6. Er… NO AGENDA?
We don’t need the old media when we have the new media. News operations such as the one that employs me are burned out, corrupt, and biased. They only tell you the things they want you to know. Adam and John cut through the BS. Really. Get over the old media, and get on board with the future.
The Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column, gang. The sooner we kill them off, the better. We need a rebirth of the “press”, and it will come at the other end of a keyboard.
I ‘might’ pay for some news content but they have to start reporting the NEWS and stop telling me how to think or how great their favorite politicians are. I will not pay for opinions or bias masquerading as news.
So. Cable/Internet users of cablevision systems will be subsidizing the Newspaper. Great!! Cable bills are going to see an increase to support this, because nobody wants to read what they have.
Peace
# 8 Dallas:
“Fox News and the DOD are offering up free free newpaper subscriptions. ”
Do tell! Department of Defense? How does one take advantage of this? Can I choose the paper(s)? Or does this apply only to free papers? I wouldn’t mind receiving the NY Times Science Tuesday edition…
– – – – –
Will No Agenda tell you the scores of your local high school’s games last weekend, or which schools will have open house this week? Will No Agenda tell you about the dispute between the health insurance company and the hospital corporation leading 100,000 of your neighbors to have to pay out-of-network rates at six area hospitals (including the only children’s hospital within 100 miles)? Will No Agenda tell you when your local health department will get the H1N1 vaccine? (Oh, I forgot, no one here believes in vaccines or health departments…) Will No Agenda tell you how long the construction will last on the Interstate you drive every day to and from work? Will No Agenda tell you about the state of relations between your local firefighters’ union and the city/county government? Will No Agenda tell you about which sections of town are experiencing an alarming rise in burglaries or thefts from cars or vandalism? Will No Agenda tell you about the expected cost of natural gas/heating oil/gasoline in your area over the coming winter?
No.
These are all stories I found valuable in my local paper over the past few days/weeks/months. If the physical paper went away, I’d pay to get access to important local information if I had to. Maybe not $5/week, unless it was much MUCH better presented than any of the local paper or TV station web sites are now.
Isn’t Newsday headquartered on Long Island? Seems like the dozens and dozens of towns and millions of people thronging that spit of land might find that kind of information about their area worth paying something for.