by Rowena Ricalde (tenth entry)As repeatedly made an example by the professor, newspapers are on the brink of extinction. They are now scouring for ways in order to save their business. With online access to free news and a paperless system to go about our daily doze of news, people do not buy newspapers anymore. A number of newspaper dailies in the major US cities such San Francisco, Chicago and Washington already shutdown as they declared bankruptcy. Online advertisements, because of the recession, has dipped so low, newspaper companies cannot afford to be on the green using only such advertisements.
And now with an estimated readership of 20 million, the New York Times, as the number one newspaper company in the world, is making a leap forward in terms of ideas to try to stay afloat. They thought of three ways to make it work (1) traditional pay wall where some parts can be accessed for free and some parts are paid by subscription; (2) metered system; and (3) NPR-style membership.
But the most innovative idea they have is integrating New York Times in the Apple Tablet (rumored to be released in January 27). They will have a subscription to be paid by the users much like in iTunes. This idea is coming from the widely-read New York Times. How about the other dailies which are not that popular outside their own cities? Are they just going to die? It's sad if the predicament is predictably going in that direction. Are there more ideas to save this industry?
Source:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/01/new_york_times_set_to_mimic_ws.html
1 comment:
That's really sad. And I'm sure our local dailies aren't faring any better (or maybe they're doing worse, considering that Filipinos don't have a culture of reading in the first place). I guess it's an externality associated with globalization and ICT development. The externality could be positive for us, the users or receivers, since information has gotten ubiquitous. But it's obviously a negative externality for these newspapers and publications. I'm not sure how long they could stay afloat but as technology gets more advanced and as more and more people gain access to ready information in the web, it would be harder for them to maintain their businesses.
Post a Comment