With traditional media outlets under threat from free online news sites, the debate of ‘Pay Walls’ or ‘Cash for Content’ is raging, with only The Times and Sunday Times news sites taking action.
Rupert Murdoch made the decision to take his News Corporation owned sites into the ‘paid for’ arena on July 2, which has caused ripples across the whole media industry. Will it work? How will consumers react? Will anyone pay for online content when it can be sourced elsewhere for free?
It is a move that will be watched by industry experts, rival publications and those within News Corporation very closely, but what effect does this have on the future of media consumption?
To make an assessment on how things will move forward perhaps we have to look at how we as consumers have changed our communication and media consumption over the last 10 years. Think for example of text messaging, twittering, blogs and Facebook updates. What rings true for each?
Well, they are short, to the point and generally concise. They do not involve a lot of time, be it from the writers point of view or that of the reader, they do not require in depth thought or a need for a long response, it is all about snippets of information delivered quickly.
So how does this transfer to media and news consumption? Well, if we as consumers are to be charged for online news content whenever we want more information around a news story or feature (rather than just reading the headline and brief story summary), then will we put our hands into our pockets and cough up, or will we use the already ingrained response and just ‘move on’ to the next snippet of information?
We have become consumers with no time for long winded news stories and features, so why would we take the step of paying for something we no longer want or perhaps need. Our busy lives have given us the right to discard reams of wordy text, be that long winded emails from friends or lengthy news articles, with the general response of ‘just give me the top line’ or ‘get to the point’.
Is it fair to say then that all we want are the juicy bits, the interesting paragraph and the real talking points as opposed to the depth and background of a news piece? Maybe it is.
Whether that signals the death for ‘proper journalism’ I don’t know (and is a far bigger subject to debate), however it does make you wonder if paid for contents days are numbered before they have really begun.
With a nation who have no time for close friends and family, choosing rather to update them via Twitter updates and Facebook status reports, do the likes of News Corporation think there is any chance of grabbing our attention and wallets for news content?
Only time will tell.
