Well,...'tis a most unfertunate ting, luv.
Posted on 01/26/2010 12:34:37 PM PST by jdfromny
In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.com ...
“Tree” months? :)
Get back to me after “Bush” months.
Only tree takers for the web site?
Wooden’d that bee a great tragedy if they failed? 8<)
Oh, give ‘em a break...it’s only been tree months.
“Tree” months?
Maybe they shouldn’t have hired the “Tree” Stooges to manage their online circulation.
They’d do better if they’d branch out more.
Is Ray Barone still a sports writer for them?
Ha
Shouldn’t post when in a hurry...
Cost
****
Purchase Price of Newsday: $650 million
Website Redesign: $4 million
Gross Income
**************
35 subscribers: $9,000
Estimated time to break even: 72,666 years.
ROFL
Bwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!
I’ve heard of dog years, but never tree months. It’s nothing to Pine over, though. Willow you correct it? I’d better stop before I make an Ash outta myself.
LOL! Great stuff. How is this guy not working for the New York Times?!
I don’t think they’d make it on “Shark Tank”.
Nobody on Long Island wants to pay for news. Nobody off LI wants Newsday.
this is an awesome story
Indeed. It says that Newsday’s product has no value to customers. All this chatter about ‘paywalls’ is just so much gobbledygook. It’s not a matter of the newspaper ‘charging for content,’ it’s a matter of what the customer will pay.
That is one helluva ROI
“I don’t think they’d make it on “Shark Tank”.”
ROTFLOL!!
There would have to be a very limited source of free news before people will pay for it.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100126/FREE/100129911#
Newsday up against pay wall pittance
By Matthew Flamm
Published: January 26, 2010 - 3:32 pm
Here is one paid model for online journalism that isn’t exactly setting the world on fire: Nearly three months after Newsday put its Web site behind a pay wall, Newsday.com has attracted only 35 subscribers.
In addition, traffic to the Long Island daily’s site has dropped by half, according to Nielsen.
Newsday executives have said all along they never expected an onslaught of paying subscribers. Cablevision Systems Corp. bought the paper from Tribune Co. for $650 million in 2008, and sees it as a way to compete with Verizon FiOS, which has been rolling out Internet and video service on Long Island. Access to Newsday.com became an added benefit of being a cable customer.
A Newsday spokeswoman declined to comment about the number of online subscribers.
Newsday.com can be accessed free by the paper’s home subscribers, as well as by Cablevision customers and subscribers to the cable operator’s Optimum Online broadband service.
According to the paper, that means about 75% of Long Island households just have to register to have access. Anyone else who wants to read the paper online has to pay $5 per week.
Still, the number of online subscribers shocked members of Newsday’s union—Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters—which is in a bitter fight with the paper’s management over a proposed contract offer that would cut pay by 10%.
Newsday Publisher Terry Jimenez disclosed the number during a meeting with employees last Thursday in which he presented management’s case for its latest offer.
The offer was turned down on Sunday, and the number has become one more example to a demoralized staff of the ways in which Cablevision and the paper have different interests.
Writers and reporters have been unhappy with their diminished influence, now that readers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Albany no longer see their stories on the Web. To find out that the pay wall wasn’t contributing any revenue added insult to injury.
“People were expecting it to make money,” said a Newsday staffer who was at the meeting. “If it’s not, why are we doing it?”
Newsday is one of the worst newspapers in the entire world and should be buried alive.
Which is exactly what the situation was pre-internet. All the distribution systems belonged to the MSM.
Thanks, glad I made someone laugh today.
I mean, could you just see them grilling these guys about their numbers...? That would be priceless.
I wonder how many years they’d have to go, at one subscriber every three days, to catch up with where Rush is at right now. :)
Did you catch how much he paid for the paper too?
They need a little business triage.
Tree months?! Give it another turdy months!
Sounds like payments from Cablevision customers and Optimum Online cable subscribers are now being used to subsidizing Newsday.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121238
‘Newsday’ Web Traffic Drops Significantly
David Goetzl, Jan 25, 2010 05:21 PM
Newsday.com saw another major drop in both unique visitors and page views in December as the site continued to charge people for unlimited access to content. But executives at the paper may have some sense of where the bottom lies.
In December, unique visitors declined 47%, while page views fell 32% — both compared to December 2008.
In December, Newsday.com had 1.4 million unique visitors and 18.9 million page views, according to Nielsen. That was down from 2.7 million and 27.8 million, respectively, for the month in 2008.
December was the second full month where Newsday’s policy of charging people $5 a week for unlimited access to the site was in effect. People who subscribe to home delivery of the paper, or receive broadband service from its parent Cablevision, do not have to pay extra.
The December year-over-year declines, however, were largely in line with what happened in November — the first full month with the new pay wall. Unique visitors then fell 43%, and page views were down 35%.
Unique visitors last November were 1.7 million and page views were 18.6 million, compared to 3 million and 28 million the year before. (Newsday has said the traffic in 2008 was unusually high, partly as a result of the presidential election coverage).
The year-over-year falloffs are, of course, significant. But provided they do not accelerate markedly, executives may now be able to begin running long-term analyses on revenue impacts.
Newsday’s decision to adopt a pay model last fall came several months before The New York Times announced earlier this month that it would institute one in 2011.
Newsday, the Long Island, N.Y.-area paper, veered away from the industry trend of free Web content on Oct. 28 with its $5-per-week plan.
Page views may be a more critical metric than unique visitors, since prices attached to ad buys are often attached to them. Newsday is betting, in part, that added revenue from subscription fees will offset any lost ad dollars that come from reduced traffic.
The newspaper has not released figures on how many people are paying for access to content, but a top company executive has said he does not expect the new pay model to “materially” impact revenues in the “near term.” One reason: many people interested in the site also receive the paper at home or get Cablevision high-speed Internet service, the executive said.
Separately, Newsday employees rejected a three-year contract with 10% pay cuts, a longer work week and other concessions. The union local said Newsday, owned by Cablevision Systems, lost at least $7 million last year.
“I mean, could you just see them grilling these guys about their numbers...? That would be priceless.”
Panelist 2
“Based on your initial investment, and the resulting cash flow, I believe you should get 20 years in Levenworth”
Why don’t they have their site free for readers and SELL advertising?
LOL! Tree Months...He writes like Bwarny Phrank talks.
Panelist 4. “After careful consideration, your talent could best be utilized in the federal government”
I am kind of glad they seem to be failing so badly, wouldn’t want to give too many other websites ideas.... like Free Republic (Fee Republic doesn’t have the same ring to it). heh.
Gross Income
**************
35 subscribers: $9,000
Estimated time to break even: 72,666 years.
ROTFLMAO!! I love FReeper humor!
If they had more branches, they’d be more poplar. Yew could bet on it.
I was going to go there but decided to leaf it alone.
That bald guy who sits next to the woman would rip them to shreds. He’d just crush them.
It was he I first thought of.
“But it was 35 quality subscribers. Doggone it, some of those people have degrees from Harvard! “
35 Manhattan dentists can’t be wrong!!
ROTFLOL!!!
How can you say that about something that has 35 subscribers. 35!
(US$9000 revenue from 35 subscribers is over US$200 per person. That's pretty good actually. Maybe they should just double or triple their rates or something).
Is that like "Dog Years?"
Heh. Obamanomics at its finest. 35 people supporting 483(+) employees. Suck it up guys. Spread the wealth around. How's that hope and change working out for you?
LOL! Ya think?
(Liberals....they're so cute when they figure out something for the first time.)
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