Talking to almost any journalist over the last few weeks over a drink or lunch and they are pretty unanimous in their hope The Times will be successful with their recently installed pay wall. Journalists realise that with so much content out there it is very unlikely that, in just a few years time, one or more of the national newspaper titles may have disappeared from our newsstands. With ever declining circulations coupled with ever declining ad revenues the newspaper industry is under real threat.
In a previous blog I discussed the merits of pay walls. Media commentator Roy Greenslade has interestingly penned a song about pay walls in his own blog today and powerfully argued that this model of providing journalism to the masses runs contrary to the whole point of the digital revolution.
Ultimately newspapers of whatever kind are businesses so, while high minded ideas of this kind about free content can be appreciated, ultimately the moneymen behind the journalism have to take a pragmatic view as to how their business is going to succeed. London’s Evening Standard – owned by Russian father and son team Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev since January 2009 – have taken the opposite path to The Times. Many scoffed when it was announced the Standard was to become a free paper but these critics are not laughing anymore as it is announced the Standard is heading towards profit.
While newspapers such as The Times and FT – which also operates behind a pay wall – have jumped on the iPad bandwagon to push new revenue streams, the Evening Standard’s gutsy strategy to provide a “quality paper providing serious journalism” without resorting to a pay wall should be applauded. The difference between the Evening Standard and The Guardian is that while the Standard moves towards profitability and grows ad revenues and readership, The Guardian appears stuck on its moral high horse without a pragmatic business model to ensure the newspapers long-term survival.
