Return To Tom's Article Archive
TOM MORGAN'S MONEY TALK
Is it possible newspapers and magazines are missing the boat? To answer that, we need to imagine a few things. Imagine collecting your paper from your computer each morning. Your personalized paper. You have ordered up national, world and local news. Along with bits on France, because you once lived there. You order your favorite cartoon strips, the weather, your horrorscope and football news. Oh, and you have tossed in a few columnists you like. Each of these costs you ten cents. This is your standing order. The newspaper tempts you to order more. It shows you the first few paragraphs of some feature stories and columns. Do you want to read more of one? Click, and ten cents will be added to today's billing. Your assortment of articles and cartoons costs you a dollar. It arrives every morning. You can order in other articles any time you wish. Maybe you tap its library of old pieces, ten cents a pop. You order your magazines the same way. You tailor your copies to suit your preferences. Your copy contains only the articles you want to read. Now imagine this: No advertising. None. But, but, but...we cannot have a newspaper or magazine without ads. It must violate the Constitution or something. And why can't we? We cannot have a printed newspaper or magazine without ads because they cost more than we are willing to pay. The paper, printing and hauling peg the true cost far higher than the newsstand price. And so a publication has to sell ads. No matter how brilliant or popular its articles are, they cannot keep a publication afloat. Only the ad revenue can. An internet publication will not carry those costs of paper, printing and hauling. It will be far cheaper to produce and distribute. It will probably be able to make money without carrying ads. This may be a win-win deal for you and the paper and the writers and cartoonists. For you: no ads. Unless you want to order in the classifieds, ten cents. You also get a huge variety of articles to choose from. For the paper: no need to do all the selling of ads. It can sell its articles for cash. No need to cull articles. Or to limit the offerings because it does not have enough space. It can offer 100 cartoons, 200 columns. Without adding to its costs. And it won't need to employ as much deadwood. It can contract with writers on a per-click basis. Every time a reader buys an article, the writer collects five cents. When writers turn out popular stuff, they will do well. When they turn out garbage, they will starve. No more guesswork as to what readers really want. Or surveys. Readers will vote, ten cents per vote. There will be less editor prejudice that keeps the work of some writers out of the paper. Basically, the paper will offer articles. The readers will buy what they want. The writers will get paid accordingly. And my guess is that everyone will do quite nicely. Imagine a small paper with 50,000 readers. Only 10 percent of them buy the stuff written by a local columnist. At five cents a pop, he collects $250 per column. More than he is paid now. Imagine the national columnist. She has two million readers a day, through various papers. At five cents per, she will collect $100,000 per column. And if she starts to write drivel, her income will fall. Meanwhile, the paper or magazine will pay its writers according to how many readers choose their stuff. Poor, unpopular writers will no longer pull down big pay. And popular writers will get the pay they deserve. Readers will get the writing they prefer. Papers will collect cash for their product. The 50,000 circulation paper that nets, say, 50 cents per reader will have an income of $4.5 million. This is after paying all its writers. Thus far, traditional publications have tried to shift their print operations to the internet. Complete with the ads. The ads don't work particularly well. I wonder if the online publication of the future may evolve without them.
From Tom...as in Morgan.
Tell me by e-mail what columns you like: tomasin@wpe.com
Home - Other Links - News Archive
Copyright 1999, Saranac Lake Radio, LLC
Tri Lakes Area News Archive Today's News
Winter Carnival Contact Us Today's Forecast
Events Calendar Local Links Paul Harvey Tom Morgan's Money Talk
ABC Sports Business News ABC News
