Perkins’ Picks

Before we get started I love reading my favorite magazines and newspapers, on paper at a cafe. There is something just not right about all the laptops. If you are writing, I get it, I’ve done it, but there are occasions to not be on your cell phone, iPod, and to leave your computer at home.

Nonetheless, finally, publishers are realizing that even if you don’t publish something on paper, the R&D that their organization funds to pay for writers, editors, and a circulation whether on-line or a news stand is holds it value even when it is printed with 1’s and 0’s instead of ink.

If they did not feel inclined to give away free newspapers, they should have never given away free newspapers.

“SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — With their advertising revenue drying up, newspaper publishers spent much of the spring and summer debating whether to cut off free online access to some of the material they run in their shrinking print editions.

It looks like the talk will turn to action this fall, when some large newspapers are expected to put up Internet toll booths.

They’ll be testing readers’ willingness to pay for information and entertainment that mostly has been given away online for the past 15 years. That happened largely because most publishers could afford to subsidize their Web sites with profits from their print franchises. But now those profits have crumbled, just as the prices for online ads are tumbling, too.

A recent study by the American Press Institute found 58 percent of the responding newspapers are considering online fees. Of that group, 22 percent expect to introduce the fee before the end of the year. The findings drew upon 118 interviews of newspaper executives in the U.S. and Canada.

The free-to-fee transition likely will occur in tentative steps rather than bold leaps that would lock all online content behind a pay gate. Publishers are taking this cautious approach because they are still trying to devise online payment plans that will generate more revenue without alienating too many of their readers.”

By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer
On Sunday September 20, 2009, 8:10 pm EDT

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