Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Over the paywall?, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
If, however, there was an inexpensive option that gave me Saturday and Sunday editions delivered to my letterbox, and e-access the rest of the time, I’d probably buy that even though I could get similar news for free via Stuff.
That's exactly what we get: the Herald on Friday, Saturday and Sunday + the Sunday Star Times.
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Alex Clark of Victoria University got people’s attention at NetHui when he talked about his Masters project, ‘News, Renewed’:
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The news industry is struggling to survive in an online environment. In New Zealand, it has been estimated that for every $1 that is gained in online advertising each year, $18 is lost in print advertising (Standard Media Index 2014). News, Renewed is a research project exploring ways to improve how quality journalism is funded online. The project is assessing the best strategies for the New Zealand market, and is developing an online monetisation platform that allows these strategies to be easily implemented. Alex Clark is conducting the project within Victoria University’s Master of Advanced Technology Enterprise programme.
KEY FINDINGS TO DATE
A survey of 457 New Zealand newsreaders was conducted from March-April 2014. The survey explored consumers’ propensity to pay for ten different monetisation methods. Some key preliminary findings include:
(1) Newsreaders’ willingness to pay for New Zealand news considerably increases when journalism from several publishers is packaged together.
o Overall, only0.5% of newsreaders said that they would definitely purchase a subscription to a single New Zealand news website.
o For a national package of all news sites this value is 1.4%(2.8x increase)
o For a global package of publications this value is 6.6%(13x increase)
o For a global news package bundled with music and video this value is
12.5% (25x increase)(2) 18-30 year olds are the least likely to purchase a single New Zealand news website, however they are the most likely to purchase a global package of news.
o Nobody between the ages of 18-30 said that they would definitely purchase a subscription to a single New Zealand news website (n: 134)
o 0.75% said that they would definitely purchase a subscription to all New
Zealand news websites (0.5x average)
o 11.9% said that they would definitely purchase a global package of news
websites (1.8x average)
o 23% said that they would definitely purchase a global news package
bundled with music and video (1.8x average)(3) The amount that newsreaders are willing to pay also increases when news is packaged, rather than sold as an individual subscription to a single site.
o Overall, the number of respondents willing to pay more than $10 per
month for a subscription doubled when offered a package of all NZ news websites. The number increased 3x when offered a global news package.
o For 18-30 year olds, the number of respondents willing to pay more than $10 per month increased 3x when offered a package of all NZ news websites. The number increased 7x for a global news package. -
Another graph. Basically everyone from 15-24 has listened to music on the internet, with YouTube being easily the biggest source.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Ian Jorgensen,
haha, another rant I left out of the book was how I saw the death of nzmusic.com as having a HUGE effect on the music scene. It was a site that music fans of all types would come together to discuss music.
The new NZ On Air audience survey has some interesting insights on that. The music discovery graph above (click to embiggen) shows a very fragmented environment of sites used to find out about music.
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Hard News: Over the paywall?, in reply to Brodie Davis,
This is why paywalls tend to mostly fail, unless your producing content of a high enough quality, most people won’t pay for it.
I know they've been very aware of this fact at the Herald. I'm not sure of where they're at with it, but Jeremy Rees told me a while ago they knew they couldn't just expect to be able to demand people pay for what they've been getting free, there had to be substantial new content.
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Hard News: Over the paywall?, in reply to Fooman,
I read that as a minimum of AUD$14.5 million p.a, without counting advertising income. Is that really unsustainable? Or is that a reflection of having to maintain hard copy (capital equipment, marginal costs of printing) as well as a digital presence (which I see as mostly cost of content)?
I suspect quite a few of them were already print subscribers who have taken up the digital bundles, so the additional income isn't a lot.
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Hard News: Over the paywall?, in reply to Alfie,
As well as the endless "Ten things you need to know about..." mashups which are scattered throughout Stuff and the Herald these days.
Junior staff are required to come up with ideas for those as part of their jobs.
Otoh, the most compelling Twitter reports from the MH17 site over the weekend came from a Buzzfeed journalist ...
You can see Buzzfeed's news content here.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Sam Bradford,
who go to shows every week and who never see anyone who looks like an APRA representative (middle-aged, well-dressed, the inscrutable confidence of the Arts Professional or ‘advertising creative’) at any of these shows, which are sometimes grim but sometimes a shitload more exciting than anything that would be allowed onstage at the Silver Scrolls.
Which is as it should be.
But Apra staff are nearly all music people. Rita Luck has probably been to more gigs than any of us, Petrina George runs the Pacific Music Awards (which are a big deal southside) and I’m sure you’ve been at the same gigs as Trilby Crowther. Ant Healey is an IP lawyer, but he’s an (unpaid) board member of the New Zealand Music Commission and a trustee of the SOUNZ Centre (classical and art music) and the New Zealand Music Foundation, which provides financial assistance to musicians in need (funeral and medical expenses, etc). They’re involved, but not in the same places as you.
If there's a gap, I suspect it's more age-related than cultural per se.
As for the vexed question of why more people don’t go to shows, the 1:4 price ratio for a beer at home vs at a bar is a big part of it.
Hours are sometimes an issue for me at Wine Cellar/Whammy, so I really like what Matt at Flying Out is doing with those monthly shows where bands stick strictly to advertised set times.
Finally, bands need to be more interesting, and those few remaining public outlets for ‘music criticism’ in this country need to be a lot more adventurous and maybe get out of the house more often.
If you’ll forgive me yet another “back when I were a lad” moment, when I was a 19 year-old cadet at the Christchurch Star I was interviewing bands my age most weeks and David Swift was doing the same thing over at The Press. That forum doesn’t exist any more.
And, of course, there’s Game of Thrones and the lure of staying in. (NB: I don’t like Game of Thrones at all)
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Hard News: Over the paywall?, in reply to TracyMac,
rein in its paywall plans*
D'oh! Shame!
It didn't even occur to me I'd typed that :-)
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I have a vague feeling students’ associations are weaker these days as well, which hurts student radio and chances of them running successful shows themselves, although that may be general political bias.
This is true. As a kid, I'd sneak in with my friends to things like Orientation gigs at Canterbury University -- there were plenty of them, quite big bands played and it was a circuit.
