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Monetising digital news...

goldnugget

Top Contributor
The thread about the Gaurdian going digital prompted me to put up a thread about charging for digital news stories.

Last Year the HealdSun online site changed their format from free access to all news and stories to subscription based access on many of their full detail news articles http://digitalpass.heraldsun.com.au...60x197_learnmore_v1&sourceCode=HSWEB_MPL134_b. While very brief descriptions of many articles were accessable for free, to read the full story you need to subscribe (and pay) to get access to the full story.

Now I get that they want to make money where they can and that online access to news detracts from people buying their physical paper, but I'm wondering whther by doing this they lose a fair bit of their online veiwership (and the advertising access etc that gets lost with it).

In a time when access to most of HeraldSuns stories/articles are syndicated and are available from a number of digital sources for free whether the decision to charge for access to online content and the implimentation of the system was worthwhile.

Another concern I have is during times of natural distasters (bushfires and floods) as people are trying to get access to any updated information they can, whether people are getting the most comprehensive information from the site or do they have to subscribe to do so?

Thoughts?

CHeers Jay
 

Ashman

Top Contributor
I think most of the news released by the mainstream media in print or on TV is designed to tell you how and what to think and is very much controlled by large corporations and the government. To pay for such information is just another form of taxation IMO. So for online news publishers to implement a paid subscription service as a viable business model is short sighted and untenable.

Once these news agencies start publishing content which is truthful, unbiased and free from corporate and political interest groups and adds value to a readers experience people might again return to their service. However, I have noticed an increase in internet censorship and manipulation of news lately by the likes of Facebook and YouTube which just goes to show that we must always be on the lookout for credible sources of information.
 

findtim

Top Contributor
your answer is in your question.

newspapers are dead in any form and the only smart person is james packer moving into gambling.

tim
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
Newspapers have lost their main source of revenue, realestate listings, car advertisng & job ads. Charging is probably the only road ahead for them. It is an industry that need to be a lot more concentrated. Less staff, more outsourcing of news & fewer readers-but readers who will pay. Someone has to pay, if it isn't advertisers then it needs to be readers.
 

findtim

Top Contributor
the ONLY benefit of a newspaper in whatever form ( paper or digital) is as a FILTER, thats it

the problem is the organisation use different filters for their OWN benefit thus it is pure propaganda.

this is the same for any media, tv, radio, internet.

at least now with the internet we get to see a lot of different sides and choose for ourselves what we believe , we also get to read what previously NEVER would have made it to our minds.

"don't believe what you read" still stands true.

tim
 

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