News Publishers: New Pay Models May Test Their Q Factor
Important Details: Broadcasters have long measured their personalities by the “Q Factor,” a survey-driven assessment of the relative popularity of their anchors, correspondents and other on-air news deliverers. It’s a likeability factor, measuring that intangible of liking, maybe even trusting.
It’s one of many non-newspaper metrics that seem alien to newspaper publishers. In fact, though, some measure of likeability, trustworthiness or other relationship factors may soon prove to be crucial to their future prospects.
The entire relationship between news companies and their readers is plainly in play. In the past several weeks alone, we’ve heard new talk of pay models coming out of News Corp, Media News, Hearst and the New York Times Company. Other publishers are all wondering the same thing: can they get readers to pay for digital content, somehow, some way?
MediaNews provided the most specific outline:
- “We will begin to move away from putting all of our newspaper content online for free. Instead, we will explore a variety of premium offerings that apply real value to our print content. We are not trying to invent new premium products, but instead tell our existing print readers that what they are buying has real value, and to our online audience (who don’t buy the print edition), that if you want access to all online content, you are going to have to register, and/or pay.
- We will begin differentiating our sites from the newspaper and focus on strategies designed to reach younger audiences and extend our reach.
- We will build a new local utility site (Local.com), which is an ecosystem of local information, resources, user content, shopping guides, and marketplaces”.
So MediaNews plans to build out new specific, non-news-based sites and reach out to new audiences.
Dow Jones is talking about creating new niche products around such topics as energy and commodities and extending its Wall Street Journal pay model to Times Online or Sun Online within the year.
The New York Times is discussing some kind of metered system, allowing some free usage and then payment, and/or a “membership” model in which readers are voluntarily asked to join and pay for “membership” in a “New York Times community.”
Everyone’s talking about the new Kindle DX — and the 70% revenue share Amazon is demanding — and getting ready for a slew of other wireless devices that will roll out in 2010.
Implications: Outsell believes that better, long-term strategic planning is meshing with short-term near-panic about ad revenues that have plunged about 25% year over year. That’s a volatile mix, with unintended conequences likely to escape from the lab.
Certainly, niche paid models can be made to work. Dow Jones, with its long history of Dow Jones Wires and Factiva products, can easily stretch itself to invent new paid B2B products. MediaNews, which, like many of its brethren, has failed to grasp decade-old opportunities to create truly regional information centers/city guides, will have a harder time of it. It’s tough to create new divisions between news and “local information” that both make consumer sense overall and paid/non-paid sense specifically.
Curiously, The New York Times, in talking about a voluntary membership model, could be following in the footsteps as such start-ups as for-profit Global Post and non-profit MinnPost, both of which Outsell has covered (see Insights, Global Post Aims to Fill News Void, January 14, 2009, and , Twin Cities News Start-Up Breaks New Ground, August 7, 2007) Both make strong quality journalism cases and then appeal to dedicated news consumers to help support the work. MinnPost has signed up more than 1250 members in 16 months, and publisher Joel Kramer’s goal is to get to 5000 and have them pay for half of MinnPost’s expenses in a couple of years.
A New York Times voluntary membership initiative would test that news Q factor most directly. If readers weren’t compelled to pay for high-quality news, would they wise up to the business model straits publishers are now in, and contribute in large numbers? Outsell believes that such a model will definitely be part of the landscape going forward, but will inevitably work only for those publishers — non-profit or for-profit, officially — that have an above-average relationship with their readers. Q factor for news publishers has something to do with trustworthiness, dependability and integrity. Those publishers who make that case will have to show their own commitments to news and community coverage, even in tough times.
This news Q factor also plays beyond the membership idea. As companies like MediaNews stretch beyond their core competence and the meanings of their core brands, consumers will inevitably make some snap judgments on those new products and brands, and here, too, the Q factor will come into play as well.
