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Aggregated Assault by Online Newspapers

posted April 8, 2009 - 8:17am
Aggregated Assault by Online Newspapers

It's difficult to compete with free! But this is the challenge facing newspaper owners. William Dean Singleton, a newspaper publisher and chairman of the Associated Press, says online news aggregators are making him "mad as hell and we are not going to take it any more." reports MarketWatch. Such targets include the likes of Google and Digg, who are accused of linking to news stories without paying.

Firstly, news websites have RSS feeds for free. Why don't they just remove them? If Google is such a menace then they could block their spiders in their robots.txt file. But Google claims to send a billion clicks a month to originating news sources from their news aggregator. I guess Singleton and his rags could go get that traffic elsewhere. News aggregators are straw men set up by stuffed men. The real problem is supposedly the whole business model of paying for news.

Before the internet most people would buy a daily newspaper. If you worked or frequented a place that would buy all that day's newspapers then you could read a variety of versions of the same story and then make up your own mind. But for most people this wasn't the case. Over time they would stick to one, or maybe two, papers that they liked - newspapers that had the same world view as the reader. But this is the point: it is an illusion that newspapers sell news - what they sell is a social perspective on the news.

What newspapers sell is a spin on the news to further a particular social and political, even economic, point of view. News aggregators obviously in no way dilute the news; if anything they magnify what is popular. But what aggregators are doing is diluting the spin. A single reader may end up on a dozen different originating news websites, each for a different story. The coherent spin is thereby lost. That's what newspapers want back - their spin-wagon.

Let's see how their "business model" will adapt to this internet landscape whilst reclaiming their influence as propaganda organs. I've said this before, but it puts a new light on why newspapers, in the shape of media companies, are buying into the social networking model. It also shows why the ultimate owners of many media companies have nothing to do with entertainment per se. It is not just the obvious advertising to get you to buy products, but the content itself is advertising to make you buy into their world view.

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Author: Rycharde Manne
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Comments

Agree wth You..

alethea000 - Wed, 2009-8-4 5:50 pm
Agree with you about books too.. Would have been a jolly good idea that!

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On line Classified

alethea000 - Wed, 2009-8-4 5:49 pm
Hi Rycharde, Yes that is what happened from memory. We wouldn't think twice about launching a classified niche product to compete with Auto Trader or Friday Ad to confuse the market and counteract their strength but we'd happily throw in a free online ad, get the client to pay for their inclusion in paper so the client's perception was that the results were always generated from their inpaper paid ad in order to hold up volumes. Little or no money was spent in promoting and developing the online offering and we just didn't get critical mass by joining with online publishers. There you have it, glad I'm out of it! Alethea Hope the Sun is Shining Where you are!

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Advertising Space

Rycharde Manne - Wed, 2009-8-4 5:41 pm
Was just thinking... in contrast to the dumb newspapers, the classifieds-only papers, like Friday Ads and Auto Trader, were a bit more on the ball in that the advertisers told them what to do. As they dipped their toes in the online waters an advertiser could select where their advert was placed: print only, online only or both. That meant they could see where the market was heading without even having to pay for market research. I once asked my publishers why they don't put adverts in their books. They thought it was morally criminal! Let's see how long books last too! :-) Join Xomba Here

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Perfectly Explained Rycharde.

alethea000 - Wed, 2009-8-4 5:10 pm
Absolutely right , they waited until their competitors got ahead before they figured out they needed a stronger online presence.. Alethea

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very smart newspaper owners

Rycharde Manne - Wed, 2009-8-4 4:57 pm
Hi alethea, thanks for the insights. When I was living in the UK I sometimes wanted to check for adverts from local suppliers. The local newspaper didn't have their classifieds online, thinking they were being smart and people had to buy the paper. Instead, other companies had started classified online directories, so I got the info I wanted and still didn't buy the paper. I can't say I'm going to cry if newspapers close down, though I suspect the better-written ones will close first. Join Xomba Here

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Classified Advertising

alethea000 - Wed, 2009-8-4 4:33 pm
Hi Jdhub, how the devil are you? You're right in the case of banners sold around news articles which are commonly referred to as "run of paper" advertising, or where the "ads attract the reader" as they compete with editorial. Traditional "classified" advertising, known as a "looked for marketplace" is where the reader "seeks the ads," and generally encompass Motors, Jobs, Property and Private/Other ads. Classified volumes generally represent around 70% of a newspaper's advertising in paper revenue. Jobs ads are often sold at a premium rate and deliver around 40% of the total ad revenue for the group. Recruitment advertising is the area hardest hit and where newspaper publishers have been complacent. It also happens to be one of the strongest online advertising categories today. As an ex Ad Director there are very many ways that newspaper brands could have survived simply by being there before their new competitors arrived on the scene.

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Interesting, Alethea

jdubhub - Wed, 2009-8-4 4:13 pm
It is kind of difficult for boards of directors and editors to justify premium advertising space to prospective merchants if most readers will only read the online edition of a newspaper. Since that's where the real revenue is for those media groups, they would be understandably reluctant to offer electronic-only subscriptions. Still, many news service websites have banner ads around the news stories. It's just a matter of making old thinking (quarter, half, and full page advertisements) convert to the newer format. It looks like Darwin's survival of the fittest has infiltrated the ranks of the newspaper media. CLICK HERE TO JOIN XOMBA TODAY!

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Newspapers

alethea000 - Wed, 2009-8-4 3:57 pm
Following various feeble attempts to export strong newspaper brands into electronic group networks such as "Thisis" (Daily Mail group) it has now become clear that these brands simply overestimated reader loyality. The term "New Media" is still banded around board room tables if you can believe it! Rather than integrating electronic media into the inprint offering it is still regarded as a seperate low life medium usually with it's own Editor housed in a grotty office with no windows! Electronic subscriptions have been launched in the UK in Regional and National Titles but this should have happened yonks ago surely? By only publishing lesser quality content on their websites in the hope that people will still buy their newspaper for premium content reasons is somewhat naieve in todays world I would say! Also hoping that their readers want to experience the "touch and feel" benefits that a printed product offers is rather a frail and frankly risky strategy to build long term growth. From experience, I can reveal that the borad of Directors of many Newspaper groups are reluctant to integrate their quality content on to their websites as they earn very large bonuses on profits generated from their inprint titles only. The reluctance of Newspaper Groups to embrace technology now means that their profit for the future will lie in news syndication to organisations such as Reuters and AP. The clousure Of "Press Gazette", a magazine for newspaper journalists which some would describe as an "Institution" proves that Newspapers are unlikely to make a full recovery. How it could have been so different if we newspaper people hadn't been so precious!

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Electronic copies of newspapers

jdubhub - Wed, 2009-8-4 2:14 pm
My wife and I discussed something similar. One way for print newspapers to become competitive is to offer electronic versions of the entire newspaper as a subscription. That way you can get the whole thing while traveling and you aren't destroying the environment by buying a whole newspaper of which you may read one section. It sounds like the savvier newspapers are heading in this direction. CLICK HERE TO JOIN XOMBA TODAY!

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print-on-demand newspapers

Rycharde Manne - Wed, 2009-8-4 1:25 pm
I wonder if newspapers should go down the print-on-demand route. here in Asia I could, if I could be bothered, read UK and other newspapers. Apart from a very few that have an Asian printer, such as the Financial Times, most are printed copies off a computer or some template sent from the publishers. Looks like the real thing, if slightly shrunk. I have bought the FT here but as readership and advertising dwindle so the cover price has leapt upwards and...well... can read it online. I can even print out their crossword online now! :-) Join Xomba Here

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