API Report to Exec Summit: Paid Content Is the Future for News Web Sites
The American Press Institute (API) has surveyed the many options currently being discussed for paid content and “fair use” fees from Google and other aggregators, and basically endorses them all as a remedy to what ails the newspaper business.
In a 31-page white paper prepared for last week’s newspaper executive’s summit in Chicago, API concludes, “newspapers can make the leap from an advertising-centered to an audience-centered enterprise” and should get on with it immediately.
The report, titled Newspaper Economic Action Plan, recommends that industry leaders follow five new “doctrines.”
* True Value. Establish that news content online has value by charging for it. Begin “massive experimentation with several of the most promising options.”
* Fair Use. Maintain the value of professionally produced and edited content by “aggressively enforcing copyright, fair use and the right to profit from original work.”
* Fair Share. Negotiate a higher price for content produced by the news industry that is aggregated and redistributed by others.
* Digital Deliverance. “Invest in technologies, platforms and systems that provide content-based e-commerce, data-sharing and other revenue generating solutions.”
* Consumer Centric. Refocus on consumers and users. Shift revenue strategies from those focused on advertisers.
ESPN The Magazine To Charge For Content Online | paidContent.org
ESPN NYSE: DIS The Magazine becomes the latest print publication to try charging for its content online. The magazine announced on its website Friday that its online version, ESPNTheMag.com, was merging with the ESPN Insider service, which charges $39.95 a year for specialized sports content. “As of Friday June 5, ESPNTheMag.com ceased to exist as we know it, but the site’s signature pieces and voice continue to live on the Insider page,” the magazine alerts visitors. Print subscribers can continue to access magazine articles via the Insider for free.
ESPN Publishing general manager Gary Hoenig tells Business Week that it is a move other publishers should make as well. “Why is it, in this business, we are apologetic when asking [consumers] to pay for what we give them online?” he asks. “It’s not like people in the milk business who think ‘we should give it away for free—we can make money on the cartons.’”
