The Newsonomics of Tablet Ads That Go Bump in the Night

Commercial conversation, especially targeted commercial conversation, is the Internet’s next generation of advertising. The first generation of impression-based web ads has been a low-clicking disaster. These new ads — some better executed than others, of course — insult our intelligence less ...

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The Newsonomics of the New York Times’ CEO Search

The next CEO is a big roll of the dice, as the gaming table shrinks. There’s little room for error. Pick the right new leader and the Times has improved its chances for survival; pick wrong and these key years of 2012-2014, as news crosses over into a mainly digital business, will be cited in ...

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The Newsonomics of 2012’s Magic Formula

We can point to three major phenomena that profoundly changed the news landscape this year. Each offers up its own half-formed metrics for that magic formula in process, and each has dramatically changed the possibilities of news, each largely positive: 1) The transcendant transformative age ...

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The Newsonomics of the New York Times’ Sunday Circulation Gain — and Getting Ready for Paid Content 2.0

Next Tuesday, look for The New York Times to announce its first Sunday print circulation gain…since 2006. Let three words soak in: Print. Circulation. Gain.... What’s been dismaying this week, though, as I talk with many publishers at the dozens of other dailies now charging for digital ...

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The Newsonomics of ARPU, Counting Revenue per Visitor

If close to right, the value of a unique visitor is 3.5x greater for the Times than for HuffPo, in advertising. It’s 4x greater for the Guardian than Mail Online.

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The Newsonomics of Defense and Offense

It’s the offense that represents a problem. Most pay tests have yielded relatively little new revenue. Digital circulation revenues, if broken out, would be minuscule for most, leaving publishers underwhelmed. While buoyed by the defensive wins, without significant new circulation revenue, ...

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The Newsonomics of the Washington Post’s Reader Dashboard 1.0

We’re into an era when we can no longer play ignorant. We can decry the “content mill” methodologies of the Demand Medias, Examiners, and AOLs, but unless traditional news people understand — and apply as they see fit, working with their own long-standing news principles — data-driven knowledge ...

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The Newsonomics of Oblivion

Axel Springer's conclusion: “Digital advertising will play an important role, but without paid content, publishing houses with a big editorial infrastructure for daily quality news will not survive.”

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The Newsonomics of Emerging Sunday Paper/Tablet Subscriptions

Now, let’s do the new digital-only pricing plan math. The Times gives me tablet and online (desktop, laptop, but not smartphone) access for $20 every four weeks, or $260 a year. Why not pay $68 less, and get the Sunday paper in addition to the tablet access? How many print subscribers have ...

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The Newsonomics of the New York Times Pay Fence

It’s a high price, a gamble, and a big hedge — see Test 5 below — against print subscribers migrating too quickly to the tablet. Since it is not charging print subs, it’s going to be an uphill battle to get non-print people to pay a minimum of $195 a year for something that was free, and it ...

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