Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s new chief digital officer, is reported in Daily Finance.com saying that he envisions a future where at least some of the TV shows and movies on Hulu, the premium video site co-owned by News Corp. (NWS), NBC Universal and Disney (DIS), are available only to subscribers.
Miller is in charge of coordinating News Corp.'s efforts to find new ways to get consumers to pay for digital content generated by News Corp.'s properties , which not only includes Fox but The Wall Street Journal, HarpeCollins and much more. He also said that newspapers will have to do to convince readers to pay for articles that they're used to getting free on the web.
He has expressed the novel idea of bundles not only of content but also against locations such that you could have a Washington bundle, a New York bundle and offer these at a single price.
Interestingly prior to joining he flipped his Wall Street Journal subscription to a cheaper one from Amazon. He now sees the other side of the table where the Post loose him asa subscriber and Amazon gain him as Amazon subscriber. Not good for the Wall Street Journal won loss both the customer management and the money.
Showing posts with label wall street journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wall street journal. Show all posts
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Monday, May 04, 2009
Newsprint has Many Challenges and Maybe a Kindle 3
Price Increases
As it tries to grapple with industry-wide a significant drop in advertising revenues and circulation, The New York Times is expected to announce a newsstand price increase in the coming days. The market predicts that the New York Times could increase its price 25% from $1.50 to $2.00 for Monday to Saturday editions and 20% from $5 to $6 on Sundays. A bold move and a bold increase, especially considering it raised its cover price of its Monday to Saturday editions by 20% or 25 cents to $1.50 only last year.
The NYT is not alone in price increases with the Wall Street Journal raising the cover price by 50 cents in each of the last two years and the Financial Times implemented 50 cent increases in US cover prices in 2005, 2007 and 2008. The Boston Globe raised its weekday cover price to 75 cents from 50 cents and is expected to rise to $1 within the city and $1.50 outside Greater Boston. The Sunday Globe will rise to $3.50 in the city and $4 elsewhere.
iPhone Free
Despite charging for its website and print version, The Wall Street Journal has a new iPhone application that is free. The technology platform to enable the app to be charged isn’t live yet and may not be up until the second half of the year! It will be interesting to watch them wean free users onto subscriptions but until then the content remains free on both their Blackberry and iPhone apps and charged elsewhere.
More Closures and Lay Offs
The New York Times is planning to notify federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe and the newspaper could cease to exist within weeks. The paper's circulation has dropped 14% in the last six-month period and is expected to lose $85 million this year. If union negotiations fail to deliver additional savings then the axe may fall and its fate follow that of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Kindle 3?
On the Digital front, Amazon has announced that will hold a press conference on Wednesday morning at a Pace University building New York. What is special about the news conference? First its on the site of the old New York Times offices and secondly its is widely predicted the announcement will launch K3, a Kindle with a larger screen.
Why a bigger screen and why the Pace location? Again it’s widely predicted the K3 is their answer to the newsprint and magazine sector – a larger screen Kindle. Amazon needs to head off Plastic Logic and the rest of the larger readers and try to capture those digital subscriptions today and not wait for others to take them. Are the NYT involved or merely a spectator -we will discover on Wednesday.
As it tries to grapple with industry-wide a significant drop in advertising revenues and circulation, The New York Times is expected to announce a newsstand price increase in the coming days. The market predicts that the New York Times could increase its price 25% from $1.50 to $2.00 for Monday to Saturday editions and 20% from $5 to $6 on Sundays. A bold move and a bold increase, especially considering it raised its cover price of its Monday to Saturday editions by 20% or 25 cents to $1.50 only last year.
The NYT is not alone in price increases with the Wall Street Journal raising the cover price by 50 cents in each of the last two years and the Financial Times implemented 50 cent increases in US cover prices in 2005, 2007 and 2008. The Boston Globe raised its weekday cover price to 75 cents from 50 cents and is expected to rise to $1 within the city and $1.50 outside Greater Boston. The Sunday Globe will rise to $3.50 in the city and $4 elsewhere.
iPhone Free
Despite charging for its website and print version, The Wall Street Journal has a new iPhone application that is free. The technology platform to enable the app to be charged isn’t live yet and may not be up until the second half of the year! It will be interesting to watch them wean free users onto subscriptions but until then the content remains free on both their Blackberry and iPhone apps and charged elsewhere.
More Closures and Lay Offs
The New York Times is planning to notify federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe and the newspaper could cease to exist within weeks. The paper's circulation has dropped 14% in the last six-month period and is expected to lose $85 million this year. If union negotiations fail to deliver additional savings then the axe may fall and its fate follow that of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Kindle 3?
On the Digital front, Amazon has announced that will hold a press conference on Wednesday morning at a Pace University building New York. What is special about the news conference? First its on the site of the old New York Times offices and secondly its is widely predicted the announcement will launch K3, a Kindle with a larger screen.
Why a bigger screen and why the Pace location? Again it’s widely predicted the K3 is their answer to the newsprint and magazine sector – a larger screen Kindle. Amazon needs to head off Plastic Logic and the rest of the larger readers and try to capture those digital subscriptions today and not wait for others to take them. Are the NYT involved or merely a spectator -we will discover on Wednesday.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Hearst to Move Onto eInk?
It is unclear as to whether individual media companies will follow the Amazon route and build their own devices and try and control their own channels or whether they will adopt a more open and inclusive approach to the market.
Hearst Corporation, the giant media conglomerate, announced it will launch an e-reader of its own by the end of the year. Hearst’s magazine and news papers include SmartMoney, Esquire, Oprah Winfrey's O Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Popular Mechanics, Seventeen 16 daily and 49 weekly newspapers including San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer both of which Hearst has put up for sale.
The first unkown is the device which is almost certain to be based on eink with Hearst Interactive Media being among a group of strategic investors that have together poured more than $150 million into E Ink’s technology. Will they use Plastic Logic device or opt for their own? What is becoming clear is that the Hearst e-reader will almost certainly be larger and wireless to accommodate the format of newspapers and magazines. This will help reproduce the more-complex layouts of print periodicals as well as letting advertisers buy spots in the sizes and format they're already used to. However for now they will have to accept greyscale which to some degree will dilute the appeal of their glossy magazines to consumers and to their advertisers. There is some speculation that Hearst is exploring making the device foldable or rollable to enhance portability.
The second unknown is the business model with many predicting that the will attempt to move from the free online to a subscription model a tricky move with only a few such as Wall Street Journal sticking ridgidly to it. However we note that Newsday has declared their intent to move to a paid model for their online edition.
The Hearst e-reader may work if readers see added value but we are now seeing the collapse of newspapers as we have known them for over 100 years. Advertising revenue, the shift of classified advertising to the likes of Craigslist, online free news, services such as Google news and the news on your mobile are all compounding to cannibalising the model.
Hearst Corporation, the giant media conglomerate, announced it will launch an e-reader of its own by the end of the year. Hearst’s magazine and news papers include SmartMoney, Esquire, Oprah Winfrey's O Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Popular Mechanics, Seventeen 16 daily and 49 weekly newspapers including San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer both of which Hearst has put up for sale.
The first unkown is the device which is almost certain to be based on eink with Hearst Interactive Media being among a group of strategic investors that have together poured more than $150 million into E Ink’s technology. Will they use Plastic Logic device or opt for their own? What is becoming clear is that the Hearst e-reader will almost certainly be larger and wireless to accommodate the format of newspapers and magazines. This will help reproduce the more-complex layouts of print periodicals as well as letting advertisers buy spots in the sizes and format they're already used to. However for now they will have to accept greyscale which to some degree will dilute the appeal of their glossy magazines to consumers and to their advertisers. There is some speculation that Hearst is exploring making the device foldable or rollable to enhance portability.
The second unknown is the business model with many predicting that the will attempt to move from the free online to a subscription model a tricky move with only a few such as Wall Street Journal sticking ridgidly to it. However we note that Newsday has declared their intent to move to a paid model for their online edition.
The Hearst e-reader may work if readers see added value but we are now seeing the collapse of newspapers as we have known them for over 100 years. Advertising revenue, the shift of classified advertising to the likes of Craigslist, online free news, services such as Google news and the news on your mobile are all compounding to cannibalising the model.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Wall Street Journal to be Free Online
Rupert Murdoch today confirmed that he is planning to drop subscription fees for the digital version of the Wall Street Journal. The plan as we reported earlier this year would be to substitute subscription revenue for a larger audience that will drive greater and more sustainable advertising to the financial news site.
Instead of having 1 million subscribers generating around £25m revenue a year, the objective is to have at least 10 million to 15 million in ‘every corner of the earth’ and generate significantly higher numbers.
WSJ.com has long been the most successful example of a paid-access news site, attracting a wealthy readership that values the site's influential markets news.
It si interesting that only 23% of News Corp's existing revenues were generated by advertising and this obviously leaves significant scope in many areas of the empire…
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