The article got me thinking about other members of the "World's Great Newspapers" club, and how they are trying to monetize their reputation, world-class reporting, and editorial prowess in today's fast moving web-based world. They New York Times (ticker NYT) stumbled on a pretty damned good model: 10 free articles per month (recently tightened to 5, I think), and between $15 and $20 per month for all-you-can-eat, depending on which platform you'd like to use (e-reader, web browser, mobile phone). I like to browse articles occasionally, so I'm signed up for the $15 web-based version. The price is a bit high, but the quality of their news, and especially the terrific insights on their editorial page, are worth the money to me. Apparently, the rest of the world agrees, as their model has been a big success.
(I do quibble a bit with one aspect of NYT's paywall. They have erected an artificial barrier between nytimes.com and the Kindle version; I like to read the latter in bed sometimes before dozing off. But, this is not a freebie under their plan, or even a low-cost add-on; it's an additional $20 per month! So rather than paying for the same news twice at $35 per month, I use Calibre to "scrape" nytimes.com and transfer it to my Kindle. One extra step that I'd love to avoid, and would be happy to pay two or three bucks a month to avoid.)
The New York Times has learned the wrong lesson from their successful paywall, however. They think that it means that average readers will pay for news. So they recently erected a paywall on boston.com, the web site for the wholly-owned Boston Globe. We live near Boston, and got the Globe (Dead Tree Version) delivered 7 days a week for over 20 years. We were part of a declining demographic, however; to stay in business, the Globe fired most of their veteran (read: expensive) sportswriters. At one time, in fact, they had the (what some considered) the best sports page in America. From http://forums.celticsblog.com:
From the 70s-early 00s, the Boston Globe had 'the best sports section' in the nation. Some of the Globe's writers over those years were Ray Fitzgerald, Bud Collins, Will McDonough, Ron Borges (pre-2001), Dan Shaughnessy (pre-98), Peter Gammons, Bob Ryan, Jackie MacMullan, Leigh Montville, Charlie Pierce, Kevin Paul DuPont, and I'm sure I'm missing some. A lot of those are in the Hall of Fame of their respective sport. With Ryan's retirement, it is the official nail in the coffin of the 'best-in-the-nation' sports section of the Globe (although, I'd say it pretty much lost that title in earlier part of this decade, as its probably not even as good of a sports section as the Herald now.)One Sunday a few years ago, I woke up ready to spend a couple of hours reading the Globe and enjoying a bagel and coffee, and instead found myself finishing in about half an hour. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there was no longer any there there. There was no content left that was worth paying more than $30 per month for. (That was another survival move on the Globe's part, they continually raised the price.) So, we canceled the subscription.
Late last year, the Times started charging $4 per week to read boston.com. Since then, I've occasionally followed a link there, but have no intention of paying to read boston.com regularly. They have almost no original content, and certainly none that's worth paying for.
The inevitable conclusion: people will pay for quality content, but you can't charge for crappy content. Out of habit and brand recognition, boston.com was a top destination for millions of readers, but those habits can change overnight if there is no value added. There are plenty of place to find Celtics scores, game analysis, local concert news, and the like. So, aided by it's Manhattan masters, the Boston Globe is slowly circling the drain. Tweet
