Friday, May 29, 2009

Newspapers Trying To Evolve

Will be interesting to see if there are any anti-competitive actions out of what this group of newspapers are planning to do.

So the American guys are getting together in Chicago to go through what they can do.

Our European guys are getting together in Barcelona to discuss their digital problems. Would have thought they can webconference that!

My own opinion is that there's room for a couple of large news providers to function but not room for all the ones that currently exist. Some are going to have to explore different ways to do what they do, and stomach a huge drop in their earnings.

1 comment:

  1. I've been slow to read this but here's my view anyway.

    Firstly, online papers have to compete with bloggers/Twitter which paper papers don't have to so much. As newspapers move more towards commentary and away from straight news reporting, they really aren't going to be too different from blogging content, and who wants to pay when there's a free alternative? Newspapers will be relying on their brand names but I don't think it will be enough, and I can see their columnists becoming bloggers instead.

    If papers do start charging, it's only going to take one to break the cartel and offer free content to put all the others out of business. I don't think any paper is different enough from the others to compete against a free alternative. Look how the Londonpaper is killing the Evening Standard.

    And if (this is getting into game theory territory) all the papers do suddenly start charging for content, I think the monopolies commission might want to get involved. Clearly charging is best for all papers together but not for any independently.

    Can't see it working long term. No doubt I'll be proved wrong.

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