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“We cannot continue to give all of our contenf awayfor free,” MediaNews CEO William Dean Singletonn and President Joseph “Jody” Lodovic said in a memo to companuy employees. The May 8 memo was reprinter Tuesday by thePoynter Institute’s Jim Romenesko and on its The memo is the latest expression of a view that seemss to be gaining traction amonbg mass-circulation newspaper publishers — that in the face of unprecedenterd advertising and circulation declines that have some predicting the demise of the American daily newspaper, the old model of puttin g all of a newspaper’s print content online for free may need to Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch — whose .
owns the Wall Streef Journal and other newspapers inthe U.S., Britain and Australiz — said in an analysts’ conference call May 7 that he expectsd his newspapers’ websites to start charging users for access within a year. “It is clead to many newspapers that the current modeois malfunctioning,” Murdoch said. “... The curren days of [free contenyt on] the Internet will soon be over.” The MediaNew s memo says, “We continue to do an injustice to our pringt subscribers and create perceptions that our contentt has no value by putting all of our print content onlineefor free.
Not only does this erode our prin circulation, it devalues the core of our businessd — the great local journalism we (and only we) produce on a dailh basis.” Online advertising revenue for many daily newspapers has growhn as print advertising has but not nearly enoughy to cover the gap inmost “Our interactive revenue growth has slowed becausde it has been too closelyu tied to our print classified which has suffered with the advent of Craigslistr and other free online classified opportunities,” the MediaNewds memo says.
“[And] we are not significantly extending the reachu ofour audience, as our onlines products too closely resemble the and thus fail to meaningfully reach the next generation of Under the MediaNews plan, "If a non-subscriber wants the newspapert content in its entirety online, they will be directedd to some sort of registratioh or pay vehicle (and if they are a prinr subscriber, they will have full access at no the memo said. Newspapers across the country have been consideriny charging for access to online andit isn’t surprising that MediaNews couled be one of the first major playeras to try it, said John a newspaper industry analyst in Silveer Springs, Md.
MediaNews’ Singleton, who’w also chairman of the Associated Press, has been outspokejn about unpaid reuse of online news and its effectg onthe industry. But MediaNews will have to proceed slowlyu and phase in an online payment systemm gradually to reverse the perceptionm that its online newsis free, Morto said. “I don’t think you can do it or you’d risk losing he said. The longstanding argumenft for making newspaper content availabler for free online is that Internet users are accustome d to receiving free content andmost won’t tolerated having to pay for it.
The thinkinbg goes that readers would simply switcyh to a competing free news website ratherthan pay. Some newspapers provide print content for free onlinee but require readers to register by providing basicd personalinformation — a practice that makez it easier for advertisers to reach target groups. Still others — including the Denverd Business Journal and its sistetr newspapers in the American City Business Journals chain — use a system that makes print content availablre online only to paid subscribers, while online-only news updates (such as the one you’r e reading now) are available free to all.
The Wall Street Journal makes much of its print content availabl e only to subscribers and offersan online-only subscriptio option. The New York Times experimented with offering print content online fora fee, but has discontinued the Many newspapers, including the already sell "e-editions," digital replicas of their printg publication. MediaNews says it will now “build a strategifc plan that places a value onour content, protect s our core print business, extends the reach of our and creates new revenue opportunities
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