Concerned Citizens

Today in the NY Times’ Media and Advertising section an article discusses some of the new moves occurring in the media industry around media pay walls. The article starts to delve into the challenges faced by traditional media and some possible solutions. It’s become a hot topic, especially with the efforts by Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. to develop a pay wall system for his various publications. The problem is that Murdoch may be ahead of his time in developing such a system but at least it has started the conversation. Similar efforts have been launched by a consortium that inclules Time Inc., Conde Nast, and several others aimed at building a new delivery model that would leverage technology such as e-readers along with a paid subscription model for content delivery. But the bigger question is would people really pay for digital content? Read more…

Newspaper circulation continued to fall by 10 percent during the last 6 months according to an article by the NY Times quoting information from the latest report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The decline marked a steady decrease that has put circulation now at a level not seen since the 1940s. The largest drops occurred with the San Francisco Chronicle at 25.8 percent and the Dallas Morning News with a weekday sales drop of more than 22 percent. Many have heralded the steady decline of newspapers in America as the industry struggles to find its new business model. But as I look at the industry as a simple outsider it appears many within the industry still desire to hang on to old distribution models at the expense of content, something that takes on the appearance of cannibalism in a struggle to survive. Read more…