Oct 14 2010
Paying for free news.
What have the big-time news and broadcast corporations done to step into the online world? And how do you think this affects their revenue?
After asking this question earlier in the week, I’ve managed to absorb a few of the things news and broadcast corporations have done and are doing to step into the online world and continue making money.
First off, journalism isn’t dying; it’s changing. Print is fading fast, but online journalism is EVERYWHERE. The difference now, though, is that the READER can immediately respond to the WRITER. They can read an article on the screen and comment back and forth, swaying opinions and getting their two cents to be HEARD.
As this kind of feedback has become prevalent in the news world, corporations have changed their websites to allow it, and they encourage it. The back and forth conversations inspire more stories create discussions that can benefit both sides of the issue.
While the advent of producer-consumer-producer journalism helps keep stories alive, you gotta wonder how the corporation makes money when the content is free. Well, they find ways.
Advertising is all over these websites, and a lot of it is specifically targeted to the readers of the story. Stories about sports have sporty advertisements, stories about politics have campaign links, and etc. People pay the news groups for this ad space, and the news groups keep trucking as a result.
They also make money through subscriptions. Even though print is dying, people are still paying for news. Certain websites allow the main stories to be accessed for free, but after a point, the user has to pay. Doing this often teases the user enough so that they WANT to pay for full access. It’s brilliant, and it’s done in all kinds of websites.
So even though news seems free, the corporations are still trucking because tweak our interests and find other ways to make us pay.