About Ben
Ben Elowitz is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a media company with over 10MM monthly unique users and major media partners including Fox, Showtime, HBO, Microsoft, and Turner. On his blog, Digital Quarters, he evangelizes “Publishing 2.0” and examines the changes needed for the media industry to thrive in the digital era. 
Archive for the ‘Newspapers’ Category
There’s More Than One Way To Monetize Journalism
16 Jan2010
by Ben Elowitz
Charles Pelton, the former GM of Conferences and Events at the Washington Post, wrote a piece for PaidContent this week raising opportunities for journalists to create new revenue streams beyond traditional advertising. His message is important, and gives hope to journalists by reframing our opportunity to redefine the publishing industry.
Journalists are understandably fearful of the shakiness of the industry right now: 15,000 employees in the newspaper sector lost their jobs last year, and Silicon Alley Insider just published this dramatic chart of the day showing the steep cliff we are on.
But while Pelton mourns the loss of jobs, he also offers solutions, and they align with where the industry needs to head:
The point is to take the journalist’s knowledge, and package and present analysis in new, interesting and useful ways for paying audiences. In this case, there’s a subset of readers (IT vendors, for instance) who would pay a premium for insight about technology use by government…. Could a film critic or arts editor moderate a readers’ discussion—live or virtual, about a new movie—something actually sponsored by AMC Theaters? You bet!
Indeed, product development should be part of a journalist’s job. Journalists should be working side by side with their business-side colleagues to create and monetize products—and should be evaluated, in part, on their ability to do just that.
These are great examples. Underneath them, they illustrate three things that need to happen for the media world to rise again to a new, profitable model:
- Beyond just content. To draw audiences and create new revenues, publishers need to go beyond just creating traditional content. The idea of creating events, research insights, forums, and more is a great way to get outside the box.
- Role. Instead of looking at themselves as a cost center — just a journalist on the payroll — to build a new model, we need everyone to align themselves with the goals of financial success — which is vital to long-term success of both the art and the commerce of journalism.
- Premium experiences. What is notable about these vehicles are that they create exclusive, premium experiences for their audiences — instead of just more words in the same old vehicles. Those premium experiences can drive premium revenues.
These are not new themes. Top journalists like Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg have been incredibly successful extending their skills and brands from journalism to a broader role in industry, running the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference since 2003. Another role model, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has leveraged his journalism role into multiple books that have had a huge commercial impact. These journalists demonstrate that it can be done – while preserving top-tier journalistic integrity.
It’s not a brand new idea, but what we need now is to see it become a widespread idea. It’s time for those who write to go beyond the creation of words to the creation of results.
- In: Newspapers| Premium Content
- Tags: incentives, Newspapers
by Ben Elowitz
While Rupert Murdoch is pumping up paywalls, many in the industry are resounding in their criticism: “But consumers won’t pay for content.”
It’s clear that they are right, sort of: by and large, consumers won’t pay for content for the sites they visit as long as there is a good-enough free alternative.
But that isn’t what this is about. In all likelihood, the brainy folks at News Corp agree too; and their point is not to fight to convince the consumer with their bold statements in the press, but to change the industry.
In fact, from all the clamor they are making, it’s been clear that the goal of their campaign isn’t even all that much about making their own strategic shift to paywalls. Instead, it looks like News Corp’s goal is to get the entire industry to do so. And they’re right to do so: let’s face it, if everyone went pay, consumers who value content significantly wouldn’t have a choice but to change their behavior.
So how would News Corp go about making paywalls pay well? If I were them, I would plan something like this:
- Force the conversation. Make as loud a noise as you can about going pay, and importantly, get as much press coverage as you can. Make sure that paywalls are the topic of every executive team and board level conversation in major publishers. Highlight that there must be a better way – that the industry needs a better structure than the current one.
- Create air cover. More importantly than just starting these conversations, give air cover to the other executives. The best way to do it is to make huge public proclamations: let everyone see you throw the steering wheel out the window so they know you’re not turning back. Give executives of other companies the air cover under which they can boldly start modeling and pitching pay services without being laughed out of the room. And when they do get questioned, give them the out that, “If Rupert Murdoch is committed to this, we’d be crazy not to take a deep look at it.”
- Get others on board. Start working behind the scenes on bundles and alliances. Get as many other publishers on board as you can – convince them that they will have precedent from the News Corp giant to fall under. Make sure to make loud promises about timing of the change, and demonstrate that strong commitment, so no one has to worry “what if News Corp switches back to an ad model and we’re standing out there all alone?”
The goal is to get enough of the top players in the industry on board to tilt the balance to where consumers need to pay up for paywalls.
For most of the readers of this post, if you couldn’t get the bulk of the sources you read for free, would you even think twice before subscribing (as long as the rates were reasonable)? If the New York Times, CNN, TechCrunch, PaidContent, and my local paper were all behind paywalls, there is no question that I would subscribe to one (or more likely a bundle with more than one) of them.
With the right consumer offering with good value for money, and the elimination of high-quality free alternatives, it doesn’t even take much creativity to find proof points: that’s exactly the model that built the daily newspaper industry to its $50B ad expenditure peak in 2006 (NAA).
If Rupert and his team at News Corp can bang the drum loudly enough to get enough others on board, he has the chance to make subscription the new free.
- In: Newspapers
- Tags: News Corp, Paywalls, Rupert Murdoch, Subscriptions