Cyberjournalist says Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, suggests, in the The San Francisco Chronicle, that newspapers are hurting themselves by putting free content online and that, in order to survive, they should “embargo their news content from the free Internet for a brief period — say, 24 hours — after it is made available to paying customers.”

The reason is that newspapers can’t sell nearly enough ads to make that model work. Even the most popular newspaper Web sites are unable to sell advertising equal to more than 9 percent or 10 percent of their print-edition revenue; and this after years of investment online. It’s not that newspapers can’t sell advertising on the Internet; it’s that ads must be sold on a scale that is vastly higher — think Yahoo or YouTube — than the levels newspapers can ever hope to achieve. The challenge to newspapers today is how to realize the value in their news content…

I think there’s some truth to that.

The web may be better suited to human interest, interviews and photo stories. Comet Video enables you to go live from a cell. Adhoc Mobile, works with content publishers, brands and mobile service providers to multiple mobile applications, text and games. Snapse connects content sources around the world in a re-distribution model with provisions for content monetization.

With sound and video, the web can add emotional content. Hard copy seems more analytical. CBC Radio 3 developed a compelling fusion of music and features. Bring it back. And don’t change a thing!

Cities with ubiquitous wireless like Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland may make good testbeds. Private, local ownership groups are returning to the newspaper industry. Here’s a rundown. Since 2000, NPR’s audience has gone from 15 million to its current 25.5 million and since 1985, its listenership has more than tripled.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 12:29 pm.