3 ms·

News media organisations were forced into bed with Google and Facebook by a tragedy of the commons. Readership was going to go to those platforms as long as any

by mdoms 5y ago

News media organisations were forced into bed with Google and Facebook by a tragedy of the commons. Readership was going to go to those platforms as long as any small proportion of media organisations published there. Smaller orgs like the ones involved in these lawsuits had only two options - publish on FB/G or miss out on a large proportion of readership. > monetize like news were monetized for hundreds of years - you pay to read them Very, very few news organisations have been sustained only or even primarily on readership spend. Your local paper you paid $1.20 for per issue barely paid for its own distribution with that money, much less the staff writers and freelancers doing the actual reporting. Unfortunately advertising dollars have been paying for news for much longer than FB/G have existed.

briffle 5y ago
My local paper was bought by USA Today. They shut down the printing press, and laid off everyone except a literally handful of reporters/staff. Printing is done at another paper they bought in another medium sized town 60 miles away. They increased the cost of the paper subscription (even online) and force us view the ads, even with a online subscription. Last time I looked at a giant Sunday paper, 3 articles were local, and from the reporters, the rest was from the USA today pool reporters or AP. The other fun thing was cancelling, that requires a telephone call, only during east coast business hours (we are west coast) and then 20 min of them doing anything they could to keep me from actually cancelling. they can F-ck off and die.
- mdoms 5y ago
  I'm not sure how your post is related at all? Is USA Today one of the small news organisations involved in these lawsuits? My understanding is that USA Today is a behemoth news organisation.
ghaff 5y ago
Yes, my understanding was always that subscriptions and newsstand sales basically paid to get a physical paper into people's hands. But actually creating the content for that physical paper was paid for by advertising. I'm sure the specifics varied but, to a first approximation, those were the basic economics. Put the paper online for free and, again to a first approximation, you now need the same advertising revenue to support the same reporting, editing, etc. But with the classifieds blown up and advertising generally going from print dollars to digital dimes, the revenue available to put out a newspaper cratered while the relevant costs didn't go down much at all.
- saalweachter 5y ago
  Subscriptions also sell ads. If you can tell an advertiser you've got XX,000 subscribers paying some nominal amount for your newspaper, that tells them that there are that many people who (probably) read the paper, and that they have some small amount of disposable income.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    That was of course the long-time model of the trade press. You had XX,000 qualified subscribers and you supported sending an issue out every week or month with ads sold against those subscribers.

by mdoms 5y ago

briffle 5y ago

My local paper was bought by USA Today. They shut down the printing press, and laid off everyone except a literally handful of reporters/staff. Printing is done at another paper they bought in another medium sized town 60 miles away. They increased the cost of the paper subscription (even online) and force us view the ads, even with a online subscription. Last time I looked at a giant Sunday paper, 3 articles were local, and from the reporters, the rest was from the USA today pool reporters or AP. The other fun thing was cancelling, that requires a telephone call, only during east coast business hours (we are west coast) and then 20 min of them doing anything they could to keep me from actually cancelling. they can F-ck off and die.

mdoms 5y ago
I'm not sure how your post is related at all? Is USA Today one of the small news organisations involved in these lawsuits? My understanding is that USA Today is a behemoth news organisation.

ghaff 5y ago

Yes, my understanding was always that subscriptions and newsstand sales basically paid to get a physical paper into people's hands. But actually creating the content for that physical paper was paid for by advertising. I'm sure the specifics varied but, to a first approximation, those were the basic economics. Put the paper online for free and, again to a first approximation, you now need the same advertising revenue to support the same reporting, editing, etc. But with the classifieds blown up and advertising generally going from print dollars to digital dimes, the revenue available to put out a newspaper cratered while the relevant costs didn't go down much at all.

saalweachter 5y ago
Subscriptions also sell ads. If you can tell an advertiser you've got XX,000 subscribers paying some nominal amount for your newspaper, that tells them that there are that many people who (probably) read the paper, and that they have some small amount of disposable income.
- ghaff 5y ago
  That was of course the long-time model of the trade press. You had XX,000 qualified subscribers and you supported sending an issue out every week or month with ads sold against those subscribers.