Fairfax NZ to charge for content
Fairfax Media New Zealand group head of digital Stephen Smith today confirmed that the company is following its Australian parent’s lead in investigating two levels of access for its online publications.
With the news industry moving to shore up evaporating advertising revenues, Fairfax Media is considering offering two levels of access, free entry for a mass audience, with a charge for more upmarket, high quality data reports The Age.
As has been widely reported, the NBR (independently published) three weeks ago launched an online subscription service, charging for certain niche content – successfully – as The Australian has pointed out.
Both the New Zealand Herald’s publisher APN, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp have also signalled they favour moving to a paid model - just as soon as they can figure out how.
Fairfax, APN and News Corp are the three largest, and by far the most dominant publishers in Australasia.
Mr Smith confirmed that Fairfax New Zealand was looking at “a number of models that could be considered around the sale, or charging for content online”, and noted that it was an industry-wide challenge.
He didn’t know what sort of time frame was involved for when Fairfax would start charging however.
“I think the most important piece to get right is the thinking around what you charge for and how you charge for it / how much you charge for it”, he said.
While many, many sites have attempted to charge for their content over the last ten years – and failed, the only sites that seem to have done so successfully are sites with niche content, such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Australian Financial Review.
Mr Smith left the door open as to whether he accepted that particular piece of conventional wisdom however, saying “by definition what you’re talking about is relatively small amounts of money then, if you’re niche. But that’s now; whether or not that logic holds true over time, or that situation holds true over time, I’m not sure.”
Fairfax chief executive Brian McCarthy said in Australia that charging for online access was essential if publishers were to maintain their newsroom staff.
''Monetisation will have to happen, because without monetisation of the online sites that the newspaper industries have operated very successfully, we can't afford to keep the big newsroom staffs we have,'' he said to The Age.
Mr McCarthy intends to charge for general news sites The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the about-to-be-launched-next-month National Times.
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Comments and questions16
The final nail in the coffin for the old fella... someone should show him where his marbles are...
I could comment about charging for content, but I would need your credit card details to charge you !!!!!!!!!!!
I doubt we could afford you anyway Jon.
Ever heard the saying, "No free lunches"?
If you haven't, you must live under a big rock. So to all the moaners, I ask you if you give your products away for free?
Good on the publishers for standing their ground and charging for the work of their writers.
Or look at it this way - would you get on a plane built by anyone who can pick up a spanner?
So why expect journalism for free, it is an art.
You heard IT here first.
and this is where most of the so called news services fall down. Few in NZ can beat interest.co.nz for the areas it covers. If I have to pay it will be for the Economist and FT for international news. Most NZ publications are going to have to modernise and cut overheads and adopt better informed writers and cut the crap.
surely this is obvious. happy to pay for premium content. this is the same logic that applies when i happily pay for my food on flights when required. if i don't want it, i don't pay.
You sell eyeballs to advertisers. Lure in as many eyeballs as possible, sell their attention to the advertising market.
That's the game you're in.
Sadly, you seem to think you're in a different market. One where customers will pay you for content they can get for free elsewhere.
I give this whole thing about three months max and then they'll realise that all they're doing is driving readers (eyeballs) over to the other guys and that they're happy to take the added advertising revenue.
Why do you publishers make it so hard for your eyeballs? Don't you want us coming to your site to read your stuff so you can lease us out to the advertisers? Do you really think you'll make more money from subscriptions than you will from advertising? Show me any other media company where that's true.... you won't be able to because subscriptions are a scratch on the surface while advertising is the real name of the game.
Must second the comment about quality. Love browsing NBR, but paying for business gossip AND being advertised at? Don't think so. I DO pay for the in-depth analysis and consistent writing in the Economist. If anything pay-for news will kill the already anaemic local journalism / infotainment industry...
As Stephen pointed out quality news is sadly lacking in the daily newspapers.
Subscription news content is only successful for the higher level of news from such publications as the FT / WSJ.
The current breed of NZ & Australian "journalists" need to lift their game plan
Point 2 conflicts with point 1 Sir.
If Journo's go on a % of profits, then you will get more of what you complain of in point 1 - news that grabs attention but isn't neccessarily more than socialised rubbish, as that is what the masses will read - going for the wow factor.
Re point 3 - print has been around since 1300ad approx, invented by the chinese, and has survived the radio, TV, and will survive the net and the next thing.
Why?
It continues to provide something that is more than meets the eye, (to coin a phrase best related to the best yet fantastical technology, the Transformers). The psychologiocal stimulus of holding the left hand edge with the left hand and the right hand edge with the right hand enables a psycological effect of making the two lobes of the brain work together and relaxes the tensoion that builds between the two when you flip from creative to quantitive thinking ie creative thinking versus calculating your chargable hours.
The physical effect of using left and right together is relaxing on the mind.
So before you explode in anger thinking "this is rubbish and I don't have time to read this before i go to my meeting..." pick up acopy of your favourite mag, or juggle.
It works like magic.
So there you go, people will always enjoy the tangiable physiological effects of holding a mag or paper.
...but unfortunately I would have to go to another country to find it.
Seriously, the standard of journalism in this country is second rate (generalisation - sorry NBR!)
A few questions:
1. The fine line between what is free and what you have to pay for. If Stuff and NZ Herald start charging for the socialite news they normally come out with then I think they are having a laugh. So what do they charge for??
For the likes of interest.co.nz, NBR etc - now they have a chance.
2. Is there another model perhaps? Why not use the advertising model and start paying journalists a % of profits? The better the story (based on impressions and ratings), the more they get paid. That encourages better writing and everybody wins.
3. Another of the big issues here is that print has massive overheads and they have to be covered - increasingly by online revenues. Surely in time print will die away, overheads go and there is more money for the journalists?
Can't wait to see how this plays out - glad I am not in APN or Fairfax shoes! Scoop must be rubbing their hands together – go you good things, go !
Does no one here see the irony in bemoaning the quality of journalism in New Zealand, in the same breath as they promise to refuse to ever pay for it?
Here's a radical thought: maybe, just maybe, if you want better journalists - you need to be prepared to pay them better. Perhaps that's the_ very_ reason_ why the publications above are better - because they can pay good, smart journalists, enough to stop them going off to PR.
Oh, and clearly this is news to some people - but online advertising that reaches the equivalent number of people as print advertising, generates roughly 10% of the print advertising revenue, as a general rule in NZ.
Perhaps those advocating generating more readers can whistle up 90% more of them from the local reader fairy garden. (It's just behind the dairy, quick, off you go).
Mind you, good luck trying to charge for commoditised general news; if charging has any future, it's only for relevant niche content. I thought it was interesting that local Fairfax head Stephen Smith thought that might not always be the case...
Is your opinion not simply a matter of opinion.
Are you a writer, or like all the wanna be All Black coaches that knock the All Blacks presently are you simply and arm-chair-critic?
I sure hope you are not in the publishing business, but I'm guessing you are selling some kind of advertorial crap to unsuspecting readers? Believe it or not, there are people out there who value intelligent editorial content and find the ads a complete nuisance.
Once heard of a publisher's wife who said "Greed is good" and "editors are only there to fill space between her ads". (Suffice it to say that couple will never be able to charge for their content . . . nor will readers put up with these cowboys in the long run).
The newspapers, both in NZ and Australia, have for many years detoriated in the type of coverage they offer to where the daily content of tittle tattle, localised dramas,entertainment are the main occupiers of space in between the adverts. Can a fee be justified for this daily garbage??
Mitchell Hall your comment 'if you want better journalists - you need to be prepared to pay them better', is true. But lets not put the cart before the horse. When a journalist (or musician, or computer programmer, or car mechanic, or supermarket) offers a good product or service and there is a sensible business model reflecting today's reality, the money will follow. Money does not make the professional. It is the other way round.
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