News Corp. announced that they’re launching a “national newspaper” that will be distributed only on digital platforms
This is part of an overall rush to the tablet platform on the part of newspaper & magazine publishers, who are hoping that the willingness of the public to pay for content on this new platform will help them offset the dramatic erosion of ad revenues. If this succeeds, it will be the first big tablet-only news launch, designed from the ground up to deliver news, entertainment, gossip & Fox Undercover/When Animals Attack-style videos. According to an excellent LA Times article,
The initiative, which would directly compete with the New York Times, USA Today and other national publications, is the latest attempt by a major media organization to harness sexy new devices to reach readers who increasingly consume their news on the go. The development underscores how the iPad is transforming the reading habits of consumers much like the iPod changed how people listen to music.
Oh, if only that proves to be true.
Love 'em or hate 'em, the Fox News screamers do generate an audience. The new national newspaper will have content generated by the New York Post ... which may put it into competition with other sites like TMZ or Gawker.
On my Sips from the Firehose blog, I’ve written extensively about my efforts to help newspapers and media organizations find reliable revenue streams for their news & entertainment content. While the models for news going forward are starting to come into focus, the process has generated more than a little controversy, anger, despair and suicidal depression. Not that these emotions are all that unusual these days, given the generally dismal state of the world economy, but they are happening to a class of people who are not only exceptional whiners, but who have the language skills & high-speed internet connections to share their bilious opinions with the rest of the world — journalists.
So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the immediate vitriol heaped upon Murdoch when he announced this latest digital news product. Many in the news industry have long regarded Murdoch with mingled loathing and disdain (full disclosure: I worked for Murdoch early in my career and was once personally reamed out by the man. Read my book if you really wanna know more). But the gratuitous shots from TechCrunch were unexpected:
Surely no-one, not even a dyed-in-the-wool newspaperman like Murdoch, would be stupid enough to launch a new national title in the current climate.
(snip)
Murdoch, however, is nothing if not delusional. … To say that’s a bold move is like describing the Charge of the Light Brigade in similar terms. Except that 278 people paid for the Charge of the Light Brigade.
No, this is way more than bold: this is the last gasp effort of a man who knows the end is nigh.
Jeez, I guess the old coot oughta just lie down & die. Maybe the writer was so incensed by the Fox News coverage strategy that he just hates Rupert and wishes him ill.
Look, here’s the deal: I know that a national newspaper is a counterintuitive move right now. Most people on the internets are working the revenue from the bottom-up rather than the top-down. That is, like AOL’s “Patch” or TBD.com, they are starting with hyper-local coverage to tap into the 85% of the ad market that ISN’T national brands, and then looking to scale up from an established base. And yeah, I know that Murdoch’s last attempt at generating a product that appeals to younger readers was … um, less than successful:
Thelondonpaper (hey, that's how they spelled it) published its last edition in 2009. There was a brief surge in free dailies in the late 'Oughts, but the collapse of the global ad market hammered them into oblivion.
But I have to give News Corp. credit. They’re at least trying something new, rather than churning out shallow shovelware versions of their existing print products, crippled with crazy DRM schemes and “Look at me! Look at me!” designs that bring back visions of the Bad Old Days of Web 1.0, with blink tags, marquees and animated GIFs everywhere. Rupert does have a history of hiring capable people and then just setting them loose in a far less bureaucratic atmosphere than exists at other great big media megacorporations (I’m looking at you, Time-Warner-AOL-Disney-Comcast-Universal-NBC). You don’t have to play the tired old “Captain, may I?” game all that much in the House of Murdoch. The man made his billions by being a daring (reckless?) entrepreneur, and the organization reflects that spirit.
Which, come to think of it, is very much akin to the spirit you find in most tech startups.
