One of the most difficult issues for newspaper publishers to resolve is figuring out the optimal relationship between print and web content. A recent column in Wired Magazine challenges the oft triumphed approach taken by the Wall Street Journal to charge readers for access to their online content archive.
When it comes to online publishing - there are two basic schools of thought. The first, as espoused by the Wall Street Journal, is that producing high quality editorial is an expensive exercise and giving it away for free not only undervalues your content assets, but can potentially harm the circulation of your main print product.
The alternative view is that the money that the newspaper cover price is no more than a contribution to printing and distribution costs. Given that the overwhelming majority of a newspaper's income comes from advertising, if you can dramatically reduce your publishing costs, you should offer the content for free to drive traffic. Interestingly, similar logic has also been applied in the print world, where advertising supported free newspapers distributed in train stations in Europe have had a powerful impact on the circulation of paid dailies.
In support of the second approach, Wired Magazine makes an intriguing argument - namely the Wall Street Journal strategy makes its content invisible to both webloggers and search engines, therefore compromising its ability to attract web users and advertising revenue. In the early days of the Internet the huge surplus of dirt cheap CPM banner inventory was a valid reason for web publishers to charge what they could for content. Now, as Google and Overture expand from search solutions to offering publishers content matched keyword advertising revenues, there are stronger revenue imperatives for maximising traffic.
Longer term, the open access content model is even more critical for the survival of a number of the ancillary newspaper advertising markets such as classifieds. In the past, newspapers were able to build strong markets for cars, property and general merchandise around their existing editorial audiences. With the rise of eBay and online vertical classified specialists - the reality is that newspaper websites need to attract as many online users as possible, to give their online classified offerings the momentum they need to thrive.
