(Above: how much would the average punter be willing to pay for tabloid dreck in the new digital world? No click throughs, screen caps only).
The predictability of the coverage of the federal election, already begun, so much blather, in such a short lead time, results in a desperate desire to leave the country for a month or two.
Rupert Murdoch is trying to make news at the Times and Sunday Times in London—but he’s not reporting on it. Will his paywall work is the biggest story in the media business, and it would be quite a journalistic coup to document the progress, or lack thereof, that’s being made in trying to convince a skeptical world to shell out 2£ ($3) a week for what’s heretofore been free.
He is not reporting on himself because even less than most news outlets, Murdoch outlets have no objective sense when it comes to their own interests (or the boss’s interests), or willingness to ask questions which the boss might find uncomfortable, or penchant for anything but the party line. The news from News Corp. is always snarlingly good—even when it is very bad.
My sources say that not only is nobody subscribing to the website, but subscribers to the paper itself—who have free access to the site—are not going beyond the registration page. It’s an empty world.
The wider implications of this emptiness are only just starting to become clear. A Murdoch and Fleet Street veteran with whom I’ve been corresponding about the paywall reported to me on his recent conversation with an A-list entertainment publicist: “What was really interesting to me was that this person volunteered a blinding realization. ‘Why would I get any of my clients to talk to the Times or the Sunday Times if they are behind a paywall? Who can see it? I can't even share a link and they aren't on search. It’s as though their writers don't exist anymore.’”
Beyond the fact that we journalists, behind a paywall, will have fewer readers (our real currency), Murdoch, I rush to remind, has always run a ruthless newsroom, in which nobody comes out ahead but Rupert. In that light, it may be better to see the paywall as not about making more but about costing less. The paywall, and the integration of the Times and the Sunday Times behind it, becomes the deus ex machina by which (and this has long been a Murdoch dream) Murdoch and his son, James, the paper’s boss (with his eager corporate lieutenants, Rebekah Wade Brooks and Will Lewis), happily tear up several centuries of history and join the Times and the Sunday Times—and save a fortune.
Meanwhile, related eccentricities grow, as with this story about the Sun Chronicle in Massachusetts erecting a paywall for reader comments, a one off fee to stop the trolls, as told in And now a paywall for ranting:
Will a one-off fee of less than a quid stop the trolls? You might not think so, but it would seem that the registration process is going pretty slowly according to the publisher. Odd that, isn’t it pretty much the same as The Times? The truth is that people simply do not want to pay either to read the news or to rant about it. The amount is not important, we could be micro-charged for our news fix but that would still be more than free – and if news, or ranting, is available freely elsewhere then elsewhere is the destination of choice for the masses.
What's even more titillating is that The Times has doubled its online advertising rates since the paywall went up, with the pitch being that the ads are worth more because they're being viewed by fewer but more high quality readers:
“The idea that you have less users but they are more valuable is fine to a point. But there is no way they are going to be able to raise the price [of ads] enough to make up for the shortfall,” said Marco Bertozzi, managing director for EMEA at Vivaki Nerve Centre, Publicis Groupe’s digital media unit. “With that amount of reduction, even if they double their rates they are not going to make their money back from advertising alone.”
The predictability of the coverage of the federal election, already begun, so much blather, in such a short lead time, results in a desperate desire to leave the country for a month or two.
There's Akker Dakker scribbling out his heart in Litany of lies judged at poll, and the result is unreadable, unless of course you think it's snake bashing day and you have a piece of 4 x 2 handy.
The Daily Terror, in whose bosom Piers Akerman resides, offers tabloid coverage of everything doing the rounds, from the latest Mel Gibson outburst to Neil Perry, wretched developer of fine cuisine crap for Qantas, ironically giving MasterChef a serve, proving vanity chefs are best left to feed upon themselves.
And Akker Dakker, that relentless, remorseless scribbling machine, and one eyed Liberal supporter in a way that makes Crows, Manly and Collingwood supporters seem like balanced folk, fits right in to the rag, making his musings best discovered when tossed away by some previous owner on a morning train.
The point being, I guess, that there seems no earthly reason to pay for this kind of nonsense, let alone read it.
The election mood's also been set over at The Punch, the Murdoch empire's attempt at blogging and close bosom friend to the pulp tabloid mentality, sharing as it does David Penberthy with the Terror, who found time yesterday to scribble The festival of insults and policy inaction, and attracted a healthy range of ratbag commentary below the fold.
These days The Punch seems to be infested by a resident group of feral trolls intent on molesting each other, generating the kind of culture wars casual readers might once have expected from the neolithic tribes that follow the likes of Akker Dakker, Tim Blair and and Andrew Bolt. The result's roughly equivalent to spending a few moments in the front bar with a flock of drunks arguing about the toss of a cat ...
As The Punch doesn't pay for its scribbles, it attracts Murdoch hacks from other parts of the empire, politicians in search of a free plug, and forlorn and desperate attention seekers and star fuckers to fill up its pages. The ultimate aim of the exercise? Who knows, but it seems to be a quest for hits or advertising, and revenue enough to make a go of it down the track, wherever and whenever that track might appear, and thereby hold out the promise that there might be pie in the sky for contributors by and by.
As an offer, it's roughly equivalent to the promise of a life of eternal bliss in cotton wool clouds with the long absent god. Fame and fortune is yours, and meantime how about a fuck for free ...
Yes, there's a common theme here, and it's the notion of payment, since we believe journalists and prostitutes should be paid for their honest toil, and it reminded me that it's been all of a couple of days since we brooded about Chairman Rupert's paywall for The Times.
The news is tremendously good. Here's Michael Wolff, Chairman Rupert's biographer, speculating about What's Really Going on Behind Murdoch's Paywall?
He is not reporting on himself because even less than most news outlets, Murdoch outlets have no objective sense when it comes to their own interests (or the boss’s interests), or willingness to ask questions which the boss might find uncomfortable, or penchant for anything but the party line. The news from News Corp. is always snarlingly good—even when it is very bad.
Golly, that's snarlingly surly writing, and the news gets even better:
My sources say that not only is nobody subscribing to the website, but subscribers to the paper itself—who have free access to the site—are not going beyond the registration page. It’s an empty world.
The wider implications of this emptiness are only just starting to become clear. A Murdoch and Fleet Street veteran with whom I’ve been corresponding about the paywall reported to me on his recent conversation with an A-list entertainment publicist: “What was really interesting to me was that this person volunteered a blinding realization. ‘Why would I get any of my clients to talk to the Times or the Sunday Times if they are behind a paywall? Who can see it? I can't even share a link and they aren't on search. It’s as though their writers don't exist anymore.’”
Which matches some of my own thoughts. It's hard enough to compete with the myriad noise machines on the intertubes, but to deliberately step outside the current structures for linking and reference and being part of the buzz is a big call. And if it's a big call for the quality end of the market, imagine the implications for the bottom feeders.
Why on earth would you pay for an online edition of the Daily Telegraph, when pulp tabloid news and rancid political views are freely available all over the free to overflowing intertubes? Or the UK Sun or the Mirror or the New York Post? And ditto The Punch, when its ersatz attempt at a Murdochian blog is done better and with a host of better comments (always the salvation when the article's a dud) to be found on dozens of blogs out there in the ether, and with a more nuanced political understanding of the world. Advertising is surely the only way forward for this kind of dreck ...
Now the question is whether you can make people pay for the quality end of the market, and Wolff sees the current strategy as part of a devious Murdochian strategy:
Meanwhile, related eccentricities grow, as with this story about the Sun Chronicle in Massachusetts erecting a paywall for reader comments, a one off fee to stop the trolls, as told in And now a paywall for ranting:
Well one thing is true for sure, and that's Wolff's observation that readers aren't going to get the most insightful observations about Chairman Rupert's experiment in the Murdoch rags, as can be found by reading The Australian's attempt at a story, Times executives upbeat on paywall approach.
It's much more interesting to read a casual indictment like Early Indications Say Paywall For The Times Is a Dreadful Failure, as in the process the writer provides a link to a dreadful failure, a promo video put out by The Times to explain why everything is spiffing and for the very best and why its journalists love the new site. By golly, if this video is the only linkable breach of the Times' paywall, please for the love of the absent lord, seal it up, and quickly.
Of course it's early days and there's no official statistics available, only those you can get indirectly, and Chairman Rupert's team is putting on a brave face, but the figures that are to hand don't bode well, as explained in the Financial Times, with its piece Times' website visits fall by two-thirds.
What's even more titillating is that The Times has doubled its online advertising rates since the paywall went up, with the pitch being that the ads are worth more because they're being viewed by fewer but more high quality readers:Meanwhile, there's the old news that Newsday spent $4 million to score 35 subscribers forking over five bucks a week. (After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site). Maybe things have picked up since then ...
Well however it turns out, there's one thing to be said for Chairman Rupert's bid to outdo the Maginot line, the iron curtain, the bamboo curtain, the Berlin wall, and the rabbit proof fence.
It's possible to emulate the experiment with the likes of Piers Akerman, by putting him behind a kind of bamboo curtain of the mind.
As a bonus, contemplating the experiment's ongoing uncertain fluctuating fortunes is a great distraction from the detritus of an election designed to torture the electorate ...
Now as we move forward, into the future, which is to say, not back, but forward ...
"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a paywall close behind us, and it's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the bloggers and the gossips all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle - will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you,
will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you,
won't you join the dance?"
"There's a paywall close behind us, and it's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the bloggers and the gossips all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle - will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you,
will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you,
won't you join the dance?"
"... and with a host of better comments (always the salvation when the article's a dud).."
ReplyDeleteAaah, enlightenment ! Now I finally see why you get so very few comments :-)
Flattery will get you everywhere, but of course the few readers at water's edge on the pond are too elevated, rarefied and sophisticated to indulge in petty argumentation and theological hair splitting and ideological ranting. :-)
ReplyDeleteBut it is interesting to see how The Punch started with all kinds of blather about not having anonymous comments, and having a nice kind of argument go down, and now is full of festering ratbaggery of the kind you can find in blogs like the Bolt's, where the dog whistling produces an LCD below zero. That's why the tabloid comments are sometimes fun to read, more fun than the predictable rantings above the fold. I mean, sheesh, you can only read Akker Dakker every so often bashing Labor before a bout of ennui threatens to turn into a French existentialist.
These are dogs who don't just lie down with fleas, these are dogs who feed the fleas blood on a daily basis to keep them hopping, skipping, jumping and clicking ...
Talk about a flea circus ... :-)
Ah, well, "when I call a person intelligent, I am describing her, not praising her" (at least I think that's an approximation to a quote, maybe Binet, but I couldn't find it in the Akashic Record - aka The Intertubes).
ReplyDeleteBut then, intelligence is as intelligence does and I'm sure that all of The Commentariat can triumphantly wave certificates to prove that they are less than one standard deviation below the human IQ mean. And thus they show us how life is lived amongst those for whom an IQ of 90 is an unobtainable ideal.
However, when I read your delightfully demonic deconstructions of their putrid prose, I find that there's not much of any significance left to say. Which is good, because it relieves me of the need to attempt to say it.
Not that I agree with you 100% without exception, but our differences, it seems to me, are those about which 'informed, reasonable, people of good will can legitimately differ." A thought entirely unknown, I do believe, to The Devines and Village Dolts of this world who seem to think that any divergence from their transcendental wisdom is just a provocative casus belli.
I did read the 'newspapers' - at least, the online Fairfax 'papers' - until I encountered Loon Pond and came to my senses. Yes, the comments can sometimes be pointed, sometimes witty, sometimes even funny ... but ohh, so very much pigshit to fossick through for so few pearls.