Reed Elsevier and Trade Newspaper Paywall
December 10, 2009
Reed Elsevier is trying to deal with the digital avalanche that is sweeping down Mount Information. I read in the Straits Times’s “Variety to Begin Charging.”
We fundamentally believe that the readers should pay one price and get all or any of our content,’ said Neil Stiles, president of Variety Group, a unit of London and Amsterdam-based Reed Elsevier Group PLC. ‘If you don’t pay, you don’t get anything.’ While the 104-year-old newspaper expects to lose many of its roughly 2.5 million monthly online visitors, it values more highly the 25,000 subscribers of its daily printed version and 30,000 subscribers of its weekly printed version.
The question is, “Will there be enough Hollywood hungry folks to make the content generate enough revenue to keep the lights on?” My hunch is that there will be some people who will pay, but the margins of the print publication from 10 years ago are not going to be achievable.
What will happen? I anticipate these events:
- Big splash.
- Lousy numbers
- Regrouping
- Relaunch
- Sale of the property.
Don’t get me wrong. Silobreaker’s consumer service is generating cash. That service uses smart software, not humans. AOL and Yahoo offer entertainment sites. I can create a Hollywood feed on Congoo.com with a few mouse clicks. These competitors are not performing equally well. That’s not the point. There are lots of sites that generate Hollywood content. You can download a podcast from KCRW that delivers “the Business.”
Something more than a paywall will be needed to keep Variety healthy. I have some ideas, but these are not for this free, Web log. Get my drift?
Stephen Arnold, December 10, 2009
I feel compelled by the imperative of a 40 page movie script to report to the custodial contractor for the Old Executive Office Building that I was not paid to write this opinion piece. Wow, confession cleans out the doubt.
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