Publishing

Can Daily Newspapers Survive?

Posted by Keith on Sep 6, 2011 in Publishing | 0 comments

Can Daily Newspapers Survive?

I read an interesting article in the Huffington Post the other day about this very subject, you can read the article here, I must admit it’s something I have been thinking about for a while now.

I have to agree with some of the suggestions and thoughts in the article particularly that newspapers are slow to react to the so called ‘new ways’ of doing things and they seem to have this mistaken belief that people should pay for premium content, what is premium content? Sadly this won’t happen as there is just too much ‘free’ news out there and let’s be honest how much really ‘big breaking’ news happens in provincial areas like Cumbria or similar counties and states all over the world, not much I am guessing.

iTunes is the perfect model, visitors only buy the tracks they want, not the overpriced CD’s the music industry would have us buy. Also how many bands now use the internet to get their songs and brand out there? Lily Allen came to prominence this way as did countless others. this trend will only increase.

The ever changing face of Newspapers

Posted by Keith on Aug 14, 2011 in Publishing | 0 comments

In 2001 we decided to try and get the first video news clip on the web and what we did was set up a video camera, get someone from the office to read the news, edit the clip and then upload it to the web. You can imagine how that went, slowly. But the point was we were trying and as no one else was doing this we thought of ourselves as pioneers.

Publishing, Content, Apps and other stuff

Posted by Keith on Dec 22, 2010 in Publishing | 0 comments

A while back I wrote a post on the future of newspapers, link to story, and whether you are in the camp that says “newspapers should charge for content or you’re not’ is really immaterial, for reasons I will go into later but one thing I do agree with is that if publishing companies are going to charge for content it has to be good quality, up to date and relevant.

I think that local news is obviously more relevant to the people in that area so local news providers have a better chance at getting visitors to the site and pay for premium content, but this is still an uphill struggle as most if not all internet users expect everything news related to be free. Let’s face it 99% of news is still free and likely to remain that way whether we or Mr Murdoch likes it or not. Take the small earthquake in Cumbria last night around 11pm, as it happened Facebook and Twitter were the first to report it, I know because we felt it and I was contributing to the updates while writing this post.

The Future of Newspapers

Posted by Keith on Aug 26, 2009 in Publishing | 3 comments

A good friend of mine Colin Gilchrist wrote an interesting article on the future of newspapers. Now some of you might know that I spent a number of years in the newspaper industry so here are my thoughts on Colin’s comments and some of my own.
I agree that the BBC does seem to have the monopoly on international news and how we read and digest it but I also think that most of the newspapers have had it good for so long and their reaction to change so slow that they are genuinely not sure on the course of action to take to combat this. The newspaper industry is centuries old where the Internet, in comparison, is a mere baby so getting to grips with this is a little daunting for them.
Take into consideration the current ‘file sharing’ issue and the fact that over 60% of the younger audience think they shouldn’t have to pay for anything online, other than through Amazon and eBay etc. File sharing is becoming the norm and free information is also the norm so getting people to pay for it other than buying the printed edition is going to be difficult. Mr Murdoch can squeal all he likes but I doubt it will change in the near future.

Lets face it the array of sites that give away free information is growing by the day.

So what do the newspapers do? Well two routes they can take immediately are, hyper local just concentrating on their local area and become all things local or they can reverse publish, which means only publish the newspaper when its subscribed to, making the print runs shorter and cheaper.

Advertisers are also becoming more Internet savvy when it comes to their advertising and with the advent of social marketing again the routes to market are growing. I don’t think it helps when newspaper companies, and they are all the same just follow the link from Colin’s blog to the new Glasgow Herald website and notice the crappy blurry newspapers in the ad column in comparison to the national ads and you will see what they are up against. If the newspapers and advertising agencies do not realise that sub standard doesn’t work the more chance they have of attracting advertisers.
The website that gets it right every time is The Guardian.

It’s a good point that Colin makes in that the BBC have advertising throughout their sites other than in the UK and we do fund it through our licence fee so is it time to change for the BBC, should it be more like a news or newspaper site and have to fund it through advertising like they do? I for one think it should and the sooner the better but I am not sure if it will ever happen and in there lies the imbalance and injustice.

For what its worth I am of the old school and I like to read my local paper to find out whats going in my area on but for the national stuff its the BBC or The Guardian and I can’t see that changing if I am honest.