3 ms·

The LA Times is not a small paper. It has the fifth-largest circulation in the U.S. (greater than the Washington Post) and over 40 Pulitzer Prizes. It's arguabl

The LA Times is not a small paper. It has the fifth-largest circulation in the U.S. (greater than the Washington Post) and over 40 Pulitzer Prizes. It's arguably the only major newspaper in the U.S. not based on the east coast.

alrs 6y ago
..and they put up a strong fight as newspapers were waning. The NYT was already garbage in 1999 when LAT was going strong and publishing stories about the primary function of the US intelligence establishment being economic espionage.
rsj_hn 6y ago
> The LA Times is not a small paper. It has the fifth-largest circulation in the U.S., Unfortunately in 2002 it was the second largest, at just under a million subscribers, and is now down to 600K in 2019, and is $50 million in the red. So whatever its former glories may have been, that does not mean its business model is working -- it's clearly not working, and its digital strategy has been one of the worst sources of dissapointment with only 250K digital subscribers in 2020[1]. So when someone criticizes the business model by pointing out that it's unlikely that people will pay for a digital subscription to the LA Times, and this is reflected in fantastically, embarassingly, shockingly[2] low digital subscription rates compared to what you believe the LA Times peers to be, then that suggests that either the LA times is not in the same peer group, or its digital offerings are uniquely unappealing, or both. In either case, throwing up a paywall doesn't seem to be working. [1] https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/news-publishers-surpassed-100000-digital-subscriptions/ https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/news-publishers-surpassed-100... [2] See this hacker news thread about how dissapointing their digital numbers were: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20576544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20576544
anm89 6y ago
To me this just proves the point. Am I really going to subscribe to the top 5 news papers? Where do you draw the line? I'm probably not going to subscribe to more than one general paper, because they probably have 90% overlap in coverage meaning even the second subscription is drastically less valuable than the first. There is no way I'm making it to 5. Realistically I can get 85% percent of that news without subscribing to any meaning even one subscription is a stretch and there is no way I'm doing more than that. In the event that there is one article every three months that is LAT specific that I just cannot go without reading, I'll find some way to breach the paywall in that instance. For the record, I'm not claiming NYT or WAPO are better papers than the times. In fact I hate the NYT and have more or less no opinion of the LAT.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > Am I really going to subscribe to the top 5 news papers? Where do you draw the line? Whichever one catches your fancy? We don’t all need to subscribe to every newspaper. Does everyone buy each brand of shaving cream?
  - anm89 6y ago
    Agreed but how often does the LAT win this battle. I'm assuming this is a winner(s) take all scenario and they are mostly a loser.
- avz 6y ago
  This is an entirely sensible position, as long as we don't simultaneously decry winner-takes-all market dynamics. On second thought, we can in fact do both simultaneously by shifting the responsibility for supporting good journalism onto our favorite other, such as "the government", "the rich", "regulators", "we as a society", etc. I am personally completely satisfied paying for publications as long as I read at least one article per issue. In fact, due to time constraints, one article per issue has become something of an objective.

alrs 6y ago

..and they put up a strong fight as newspapers were waning. The NYT was already garbage in 1999 when LAT was going strong and publishing stories about the primary function of the US intelligence establishment being economic espionage.

rsj_hn 6y ago

> The LA Times is not a small paper. It has the fifth-largest circulation in the U.S., Unfortunately in 2002 it was the second largest, at just under a million subscribers, and is now down to 600K in 2019, and is $50 million in the red. So whatever its former glories may have been, that does not mean its business model is working -- it's clearly not working, and its digital strategy has been one of the worst sources of dissapointment with only 250K digital subscribers in 2020[1]. So when someone criticizes the business model by pointing out that it's unlikely that people will pay for a digital subscription to the LA Times, and this is reflected in fantastically, embarassingly, shockingly[2] low digital subscription rates compared to what you believe the LA Times peers to be, then that suggests that either the LA times is not in the same peer group, or its digital offerings are uniquely unappealing, or both. In either case, throwing up a paywall doesn't seem to be working. [1] https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/news-publishers-surpassed-100000-digital-subscriptions/ https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/news-publishers-surpassed-100... [2] See this hacker news thread about how dissapointing their digital numbers were: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20576544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20576544

anm89 6y ago

To me this just proves the point. Am I really going to subscribe to the top 5 news papers? Where do you draw the line? I'm probably not going to subscribe to more than one general paper, because they probably have 90% overlap in coverage meaning even the second subscription is drastically less valuable than the first. There is no way I'm making it to 5. Realistically I can get 85% percent of that news without subscribing to any meaning even one subscription is a stretch and there is no way I'm doing more than that. In the event that there is one article every three months that is LAT specific that I just cannot go without reading, I'll find some way to breach the paywall in that instance. For the record, I'm not claiming NYT or WAPO are better papers than the times. In fact I hate the NYT and have more or less no opinion of the LAT.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Am I really going to subscribe to the top 5 news papers? Where do you draw the line? Whichever one catches your fancy? We don’t all need to subscribe to every newspaper. Does everyone buy each brand of shaving cream?
- anm89 6y ago
  Agreed but how often does the LAT win this battle. I'm assuming this is a winner(s) take all scenario and they are mostly a loser.
avz 6y ago
This is an entirely sensible position, as long as we don't simultaneously decry winner-takes-all market dynamics. On second thought, we can in fact do both simultaneously by shifting the responsibility for supporting good journalism onto our favorite other, such as "the government", "the rich", "regulators", "we as a society", etc. I am personally completely satisfied paying for publications as long as I read at least one article per issue. In fact, due to time constraints, one article per issue has become something of an objective.