Posted on 05/17/2009 8:06:55 AM PDT by raccoonradio
I'm not going to complain about the latest price increases announced by the Boston Globe, since I'm on the record as believing that newspapers can and should charge a lot more for their print editions. But does it have to be so confusing?
(snip)
Over at the Boston Phoenix, Adam Reilly, ponders moving to online-only, and asks whether his readers will pay the higher price. My answer: I couldn't rely solely on Boston.com, the Globe's free Web site, because its ad servers are miserably slow. It's fine for reading a few stories, but not the whole paper.
(snip)
In such an environment, newspapers are going to have to find a way to get readers to pick up more of the cost. It may be a hopeless task, and it may fail, as Warren Buffett warned recently. But unless they try, failure is guaranteed.
One comment had said: >>One point to consider: That $49 also can be expressed as $637 on an annual basis for a Globe subscription on paper. That is not a trivial expense; I'd say the Globe has just shut off about 2/3 of their readership from affordability.
Some of the comments:
Newshound:
>>It’s already failed. Charging more and losing more readership makes it worse. This is the same business that can pay directors and executives millions but can destroy its most valuable asset - heavy readership penetration. Without that it’s done, and at less than 30% it is close to dead already.
Mike From Norwell:
>>May drop subscription (but pick up at newsstand from now on). With people getting hit from all sides (somehow will have to come up with the money for all of these “cups of coffee” referenced by D. Patrick), this might be the final straw for many folks.
Brigid:
>>We had a discussion about this this morning. We subscribe by the year, and it’s almost time to re-up. The only thing keeping us from dropping the Globe altogether is that their website is so miserable—is that part of their strategy?
The problem is not so much the price increase as the price increase couled with a sharp drop in the quality and quantity of the content. Less paper for more money? No thanks.
Ron Newman:
>>But I’m talking about the advertisers that the Globe still has today. Those advertisers aren’t going to be happy paying the same rate for reduced circulation. So they’ll either cut back on ads, or force the rates down. Neither of these sounds to me like good news for the Globe.
George:
>>My wife and I have subscribed to the Boston Globe for almost 45 years. We stuck with the globe through the school desegregation turmoil and even the Paul Szep years didn’t scare us away. $637 per year is too much. We will be cancelling our daily subscription and will either change it to a Sunday only subscription (the food coupons almost pay for the paper on Sunday) or decide to walk down to the local convenience store every Sunday morning.
Brought to by the same people who think a tax rate increase will increase revenue. Must be run by a bunch of folks who didn’t understand their first year calculus course.
I looked at the ..Washington Examiner.. figured it might be worth getting.. well out of state subscriptions is $400.. so
I guess not hehe.
637 a year for a paper? $5 for a single days edition?
Yea, I wouldn’t pay 650 a year for a niche specialty trade publication, sure as hell ain’t paying it for a regurgitation of wire stories I read yesterday online and liberal editorializing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.