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Looks like Rupert Murdoch gambled correctly. Congratulations to him for taking a high-risk move in the face of huge opposition. I think it has a valuable lesso
by ig1 16y ago
Looks like Rupert Murdoch gambled correctly. Congratulations to him for taking a high-risk move in the face of huge opposition.
I think it has a valuable lesson for entrepreneurs that sometimes taking the unpopular route can be the correct business decision.
- rwmj 16y agoMy blog, daily readership of just under 1000, can now boast an audience that is 1% of the size of a national UK newspaper. Except my blog costs next to nothing to run, maybe an hour a day and use of a laptop. The cost basis alone of the Times website is clearly and massively wrong. At the very least if this business decision is good (losing 99% of your audience and hiding yourself from Google is at best dubious), but if it still makes sense, someone else can come along and undercut them on cost and make even more money.
- ig1 16y agoPut some ads on your blog. You'll make maybe $300-400/year. You'll essentially be making $1/hour. Advertising doesn't generate anywhere enough revenue to cover a journalists salary let alone the overheads of a news gathering organization.
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- MichaelGG 16y agoReally? According to[1], print advertising brought in over $47 billion in 2005. Skip to 2009 and that number a bit over half (24.8BN), with online newspaper advertising not even getting in 3BN. That seems like a major loss in revenue to newspapers, one that must be making an impact. According to the NYT's 10-K [2], 53% of revenue comes from advertising! Yet in 2005, 66% did [3]. Also remember as print subscribers fall off, those costs fall off too. The raw cost of materials was around 30% of subscriber revenue, although I think they trimmed the size of it down to help out there. Wages for the actual print side are another fair portion. So, contrary to other claims, it would seem that advertising generates quite enough revenue to cover journalists. EDIT: Perhaps _online_ advertising isn't enough to cover salaries, but that's a separate issue. The newspapers are trying to make a transition as that nice money from advertising (especially classifieds) dries up. They can whine and complain about people "getting stuff for free" but it doesn't change the fact they are painfully adjusting to a new business model. 1: http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expenditures.aspx http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expenditures... 2: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/financials/drawFiling.asp?docKey=136-000119312510036478-40RGSMR85LU9ELC7LLSMAE5QCT&docFormat=HTM&formType=10-K http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/financials... 3: http://www.nytco.com/pdf/annual_2005/2005NYTannual.pdf http://www.nytco.com/pdf/annual_2005/2005NYTannual.pdf
- mattmaroon 16y agoThis is akin to saying someone can come along and make a $20 smart phone and Apple will lose all of their iPhone revenues. People will pay more for quality. No offense to you, but your blog would likely not be considered that by 100k people, at least not enough to pay. (Neither would mine). Quality content costs real money to produce, some schlub like you or me writing our opinions online does not. Charging certainly wouldn't work for bloggers, but it just might for outlets like this or the WSJ or the NYT. There's a market for both.
- user24 16y agomodesty's great and all, but if you're not going to link to your blog in the comment at least make sure you've a link to it in your HN profile!