Results matching “free subscripti”

Spanish free business daily, Negocio was re-launched last week with a new look.

Negocio was first launched in April 2006 and was the first free subscription newspaper in Spain. It has a daily circulation of 63,000 but, according to Newspaper Innovation, there are plans to increase circulation by 20,000.  

Miguel Buckenmeyer, the designer of the new layout, said: "The paper wanted both to modernize its image and blur the distinction between 'paid' and 'free' content. In Spain there is a great bias against 'free' papers by many people who regularly read newspapers. Therefore, it was important for the redesign to depict Negocio as a 'quality paper.'

Sources: Newspaper Innovation

In an article published yesterday in The Huffington Post, Bob Guccione, Jr. presents an interesting series of predictions for the future of the media.  He predicts the endurance of print, the decline of Google, and that imagination will play a key role.

First, he believes that major city dailies will be transformed into free papers and that home delivery will require a paid subscription.  Also, the Sunday paper will continue to be sold, but will become a source of information for the weeks events.

Guccione also predicts that Google will loose significant market share because competitors will finally step up to the plate and create good or even better search engines.

His next prediction comes as somewhat of a surprise, "The Internet will not consume print, because it's not strong enough, it's not better, and it's too busy consuming itself."  Although, he does admit that print has a lot to worry about, but that their problems can be resolved.  

He s quick to highlight the fact that publishers need a new formula, what used to work is not working any longer.  "The Internet hit traditional publishing like the asteroid that struck the earth and killed the dinosaurs."  Publishers need to start getting creative.

Ultimately, Guccione theorizes that the future of media will come down to one thing, imagination. "So those in publishing should pick their collective chins up off the floor and realize that the future couldn't be brighter, as soon as we recognize that digital technology is the modern-day equivalent of color printing and faster presses, and that the thing that feeds the new machine is the same thing that fed the old one: imagination."

Sources:  Media Bistro, The Huffington Post

"You'll see, in the next 12 to 18 months, a wave of electronic-newspaper devices," says Russell Wilcox, chief executive of E Ink, the MIT spinoff whose technology powers the Kindle, Sony's Reader and other competitors.

Roger Fidler, a former newspaper executive who now researches and consults on e-readers at the University of Missouri, believes tthere are three key requirements for the device to catch on: larger screens, colour screens (a must for advertisers) and lower prices.

Colour will not happen for a few years yet, but several companies will soon launch e-readers with screens the size of an 8.5-by-11-inch piece of paper. Furthermore, the next generation will have flexible, plastic screens that do not crack, unlike the current generation of glass-screened devices.

The industry is gaining confidence in the belief that the price of e-readers can be brought down, as print-newspaper subscriptions can be expensive - one can pay over $1,300 a year to get home delivery of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe.

The biggest concern remains whether consumers who currently read newspaper on the Web for free can be persuaded to pay $10 or more a month for an e-newspaper subscription.

Source: Newsweek via IFRA Executive News Service

See also:

Plastic Logic enters the E-Newspaper market

New version of Kindle to be launched next year "at the earliest"

Sony Reader muscles into Kindle territory

Renowned London lifestyle magazine Time Out reports that it may shift its listings to the Internet and be distributed for free, underlining that there is a chance that the magazine's main role would be online. Time Out's concerns may reflect those of the newspaper industry in general, as publications strive to deal with revenue drops and decreasing print circulation.

 

Singapore newspaper The Straits Times (ST) revealed its print and digital makeover last Friday. The revamped print version features some changes in fonts and colors as well as an increased amount of top news on the front page. The redesigned website features a division of www.straitstimes.com into a paid service ST Digital and the free ST Breaking News.   

This week, the print edition will change the days that the sections "Digital Life", "Mind Your Body" and "Urban" are printed to Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively.

Like the US paper the Philadephia Inquirer, the ST is putting more focus on covering breaking news online. ST Breaking News will include breaking news coverage and news blogs, and the readers would have the ability to comment and interact with the reporters. The paid subscription service ST Digital will provide users with e-papers.

ST also announced the launch of the ST Razor TV, a free interactive online TV feature that offers live news programs, video on demand and a space for users to interact and communicate.

The paper plans to raise circulation until the end of August by providing 10,000 additional copies daily to unsubscribed households and coffeeshops.

Source: Publicitas

See also:
Singapore: The Straits Times should focus on "sponge" readers
US: Philadelphia Inquirer managng editor takes "backward" step?
US: Response to Philadelphia Inquirer's new online policy

Eight months after its launch, Mail Today, the "compact" daily is making a mark in a competitive market.

Suresh Balakrishnan, chief operating officer, said: "The physicality of the paper has been a complete winner for us. We call ourselves a compact, not a tabloid." Compacts not only save on printing costs, but are also easier to handle.

In a market where The Times of India (TOI) and Hindustan Times (HT) are the leaders, Mail Today's only way to fight them was through a well-defined strategy and differentiated content. For four months after the launch, Mail Today was circulated free to India Today subscribers. The idea was to get it sampled by readers. Balakrishnan states that approximately 60 per cent of the households posted their subscriptions at the end of the four months.

The company is clear about its target audience. Balakrishnan said: "We are actually talking to the new Indian - well to do, lover of gadgets and gizmos, someone who eats out pretty often, and aspires for good education for his kids. He is a conspicuous consumer and believes in living for today and invests in luxuries for himself and his family.

Mail Today targeted areas such as Gurgaon, Noida, Mayur Vihar and South and Central Delhi and its target audience is SEC A, 25-40 years, male and female.

Mail Today claims a circulation of 1,30,000 copies, of which 90,000 are paid.

Source: afaqs! directed by IFRA Executive News Service

In the last year, the Wall Street Journal's web site - one of the few news sites still requiring a paid subscription - has nearly doubled its user-base, with a 94% increase since June 2007. The site now reaches 16.2 million users.

While many sites requiring subscriptions flounder -- just last week, the Irish Times dropped their subscription-based platform, relaunching as a free site, and earlier this year the Atlantic Monthly also dropped their online paywall -- the Wall Street Journal has been uncommonly successful.

The site offers a mix of free and paid content. The Journal's breaking-news alerts and personal-finance, opinion and lifestyle content, as well as videos, blogs, podcasts and other interactive elements are all available free.

Even with a fee - print subscribers pay $49 a year for a web subscription - WSJ Online attracts more than one million subscribers and 10 million monthly unique visitors.

In 2007, WSJ.com generated about $60 million in subscription revenue. To put this in perspective, making up that revenue in ad sales would require WSJ.com to increase traffic by more than 20 million unique monthly visitors.

Sources: Media Week, The Wall Street Journal
 

On July 13, the free San Francisco Examiner plans to publish, for the first time, its redesigned Sunday edition.

"Consumers and advertisers alike confirm the significant value provided by our subscription-free newspapers and the Examiners' strong emphasis on local news," said Ryan McKibben, Clarity Media Group CEO, in May.

The edition will feature a review of weekly news, as well as local news that will include expanded features like opinion and environmental focus.

"It's no secret that this is a very difficult period for our industry. But it's actually an exciting time when one has the necessary talent and is sufficiently nimble and innovative -- to effectively meet the demands of rapidly changing markets," McKibben said.

The last Weekend edition of the Examiner was printed last Saturday.

Source: The San Francisco Examiner, Editor and Publisher

See also:
US: Examiner freesheets move to Sunday, mix up distribution

Mark Potts, author of the Recovering Journalist blog, recently wrote about the ten changes he thinks newspapers need to make to thrive. What follows is an edited transcript of his post:

What would you do if you ran a newspaper?

Somebody asked me that question recently, and it made me pull together some of the thoughts I've had recently about the problems that newspapers are having and what they might do to pull out of their current spiral. This is hardly a complete list, but here's a 10-point prescription for ailing newspapers:

1. Make the Web the primary product.
Stop pasting the newspaper onto a screen. Reorganize the newsroom so that its work appears online as quickly as possible. ... And embrace the technology: news Web sites should be full of Web 2.0 goodness like interactive maps, social networking tools, RSS feeds, distribution to mobile devices, etc. Use the medium to its fullest.

2. Local, local, LOCAL!
There are a zillion places to get national and international news, in real time. But newspapers are virtually the only source of truly local news. ... Local news is the last unique franchise that newspapers own, and too many newspapers don't seem to understand this. ... (Why do you think local community newspapers are thriving when big metro dailies are shedding circulation?)

3. If it's widely available elsewhere, don't waste time re-creating it.
Does every newspaper really need its own movie critic? A TV critic? ... Book reviews? Stories from Washington that the AP already has? ... the answer is unequivocably no. Those resources are just wastd.

4. Zero-base the news operation.
Pretend you're starting from scratch. Look at everything that's in the paper and ask tough questions about whether it's still necessary in an age when readers have multiple sources of news and information.

5. Get the readers involved.
As Dan Gillmor has elegantly argued, the audience knows more than news people do. Much more. Tap that knowledge by encouraging reader participation in as many ways as possible: contributing news and information about their communities, sending in photos and videos, commenting on everything. This can't be a token effort, and you absolutely cannot be scared or controlling about it: let the readers get involved at every opportunity. It will greatly improve the product and increase readership.

6. Lose the editorial page.
Unsigned editorials are a relic of a bygone era when newspaper barons exerted power in their community... Here's a thought: Replace it with reader opinions!

7. Expand the advertising base.
In any market, there are thousands of small advertisers that would never consider advertising in the big local newspaper. It's too expensive and covers too broad an area. But those advertisers want to reach the same people the newspaper does. Find a way to make this happen: more focused zoning, cheaper ads, ad rep pay structures that encourage selling to smaller advertisers. This is another area where community papers are running rings around big dailies.

8. Rethink the classifieds.
Craigslist, Monster.com and countless other news competitors have decimated the newspaper classifieds business. ... Anybody who's used craigslist knows how much more effective it is than paid newspaper classifieds. Look hard at your classifieds ... Yes, that may include shifting most of the classifieds online and giving them away for free, in order to keep the critical mass of classifieds that makes them useful.

9. Find new ways to serve advertisers.
What newspapers offer advertisers--display ads, classifieds--really hasn't changed much in a century. Look for ways to change that. Get into the Yellow Pages directory business online. Aggressively offer contextual advertising. Use idle newspaper delivery resources to help local businesses with their delivery needs. Use subscription lists to help businesses find customer leads. Explore interactive advertising forms that go way beyond boring banner ads. Offer data services to help businesses manage their inventories or sell things online. It's not enough to simply sell space in the paper or on the Web site. Help advertisers make their businesses more successful.

10. Take chances. Innovate. Be fearless about trying things--and killing things.
...A wise editor once said to me, there's virtually no history of research and development in the newspaper business, which is odd considering that covering the news is a daily act of research and development. Let's face it: The single biggest innovation in print newspaper journalism in the past decade or so is...Sudoku. Newspapers can and must do better than that to survive.

Source: Recovering Journalist

The Irish Times is one of the latest to launch a free website, after being subscription-only for around five years.

According to PaidContent.co.uk, the site itself will have richer content and will allow readers to interact more successfully with each other and with the newspaper staff.

The Irish Times is currently integrating its newsroom. "In a new world where trust and accuracy are often the casualties of speed," it will also seek to further co-ordinate print and online content.

"The move to a free Irish Times on the web follows in the recent footsteps of many leading newspaper titles in the world today, among them the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times," wrote the Times.


Source: PaidContent.co.uk through David Black, IrishTimes.com

See also:

La Tribune opens archives, another news site edges towards free
User traffic increases after the closure of TimesSelect
UK: Guardian integration/ away from editorial funnel towards dual overhead

The national Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad managed to turn the tide and went from being close to bakruptcy to increasing its circulation by introducing new weekend editions. Editor in Chief Erik Bjerager explained how this was done at the 15th World Editors Forum.

Kristeligt Dagblad is a national Christian newspaper that is published six days a week. It was founded in 1896. In 1995 circulation reached a record low with only 13,000 copies, and about 35,000 readers a day. Today  the paper has about 100,000 readers a day and a circulation of 26,000 copies.

Back in 1995 Kristeligt Dagblad had a hard time selling six day subscribtions but needed to attract new subscribers to ensure future circulation. To solve the problem, it introduced new editions on Fridays and Saturdays and offered subscribers that wanted to give up their subscribtions the opportunity to subscirbe only to the Friday edition, or to the Friday and Saturday editions.

Bjerager talked abut how he thinks it is a mistake to look at the newspaper as a mass medium; reading the newspaper is a personal experience. He said that if you are able to establish a realtionship between the reader and  the newspaper you will have a much easier time attracting subscribers. And what Kristeligt Dagblad has done to establish that relationship is focus on the core subjects of a Christian paper: ethics, faith and existence, and highlighting them in two new sections in the weekend editions.

On Fridays they introduced a new section called "Life & Soul" where they focus on social issues and stories about relations, marriage and divorce, friendship etc. The also have a widely read column by a psychologist. On Saturdays they have a section called "Books & Culture" where they write about, well, books and culture, but from a Christian point of view.

Bjerager said that his paper has never marketed its special weekend subscription package. Instead, it gives away four week subscritions for free, and then if readers do not wish to buy a full subscription, they are offered the two-day weekend subscribtion. The free subscriptions also helped to caputure poeple who are somewhat skeptical of Christian papers.

The papers strategies have resulted in 19,000 extra copies sold on Fridays and 9,000 extra copies on Saturdays. Today Kristeligt Dagblad has about 40,000 subscribers total.

The Examiner freesheets in San Francisco, Washington and Baltimore, will add a Sunday edition in all of those cities, replacing the Saturday editions.

Up to now, The Examiner was published on weekdays and Saturdays. Distribution of the freesheets, which were home-delivered in high-end neighborhoods, will be discontinued on weekdays - except for Thursdays, when a "pre-weekend" edition will be sent out. The Sunday edition will be home-delivered.

As a result, the number of single weekday copies at stands and high-traffic points will be doubled.

"Obviously, we do research every year, and this is what the findings are. There's not as much demand [for home delivery] early week from advertisers or readers. It's high demand late week and it's a high demand on Sundays. We shifted our assets to a more valuable position," said Ryan McKibben, CEO of Clarity Media, which publishes the free papers.

"We're going to take a more aggressive approach [with single-copy distribution] and go where the people are that we want. The legacy [paid-subscription] papers are a fairly traditional and passive approach to single copy."

Source: bizjournals through I Want Media

TimesOnline launched a beta version of its digital archive, opening up over two hundred years of newspaper content online.

It seems more and more newspapers are opening online archives, in an effort to draw traffic (guardian.co.uk has been trying a paid-for model since last November).

The archive features content from The Times, Sunday Times and TimesOnline published since 1785.

The beta version will be expanded and officially launched in the next couple of months.

TimesOnline is using technology from search company Fast. The archive will initially be free to access, but eventually a subscription model could emerge.

Source: journalism.co.uk