In a recent post we explored the arrival of the death stars and the impact on local radio across Canada. Today comes word that unless your local newspaper embraces the digital era, its chances of survival are slim.
A report from Agence France Post (which seems to have time on its hands between nightly riots) suggests that the internet holds the only future for newspapers. No more paper, no more in, it seems we are on the verge of a purely digital paper, one viewed on your home or office computer and not around the kitchen table.
Some news organizations are already ahead of this curve, by far one of the best websites out there is the Guardian Newspaper which offers up a comprehensive gathering of news and opinion and all of it for free. This radical thought seems to run counter to some North American publishers who put their digital product behind a user pay firewall. Which seems pointless to me, since you simply type your topic of search into a google engine and you will find a number of different options to suit your needs.
The folks at the National Post and other Asper owned products have no idea how many "customers" they lose daily to the likes of Slate, Salon and BC's very own the Tyee. The Post allows its home delivery subscribers free access to their site, but if you are unfortunate enough to live out of the delivery zones or buy at a newsbox then its tough darts for you. Recently the Globe and Mail has followed the Post lead and set up a subscription based site, some items can be read for free, others require the viewer to become a preferred member.
Here in Podunk the website for the Daily news, gives the viewer a tease of the days top stories and then suggests that the viewer go and buy the local paper or have it mailed to their home for a fee. While I understand the idea of not wanting to put their paper out there for free, it would seem if they were more creative with their website they might be able to attract more viewers to it and make up the cost on line. Having click through ads (like Salon's where you actually have to watch before moving on) on the way to a few feature stories or the classified ads, would surely recoup the cost of the two or three stories that they used to post on the site complete and for free. Using click through ads might also allow them to keep an on line archive of past stories for folks to use as a reference library.
The current approaches by Canadian media is all so shortsighted, instead of taking a page from Salon and giving the viewer the option to watch a commercial before accessing the site, the two national news gatherers try to pick their pockets. Thirty seconds I can spare, thirty cents I can't.
As the medium evolves, one can imagine that future information and opinion sites will feature flash commercials and classifieds, podcasts to enhance the content and a message board option to give the browsing customer a chance for instant feedback on the issues of the day or that fancy car for sale in the classifieds.
No wonder newspaper people are worried about the brave new world ahead, their old ways of doing things are surely on the way out. Unless they find a way to attract customers without tapping their pockets, they may find that they will suffer the same fate.
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