Exhibit A: ESPN.com gets paid nothing from Comcast, but ESPN TV gets paid a subsidy from Comcast. That’s where the money is.

http://briancarr.net/?p=20

Cheers, bcarr

I am located in Houston and recently read the houston chronicle (not online) and 90% or more of the stories in the paper were articles from AP and Reuters. The newspapers have cut real journalism out for the most part because that costs real money.

However, why should i pay for AP news via the houston chronicle when i can get it online for free from 100′s of outlets. If those outlets were charged based on the eyeball, it would level the playing field and make all news “cost the same” regardless of the format you read or see it.

This way, local newspapers have a “chance” to survive in print or online. However, the real long term loser will be AP and Reuters 10 years from now because they will only have a small number of paying subscribers for their news and the trend will repeat itself because they can not afford their journalists and the quality and quantity of reports will go down further.

Content is King and if Murdoch thinks his brands are stong enough to support charging for a fee, without a HUGE quality uptick of real journalism, He is a fool! The only thing that seperates his properties from the 100′s of others is the brand. In the day of the internet, the “brand” means little when it is so easy to find the same just as easy for less.

There might be 10 newspapers in America that delivers real value and could get away with charging a fee.

Think of the unique characteristics of ESPN Magazine and WSJ…

What other Newspaper / Magazine properties have similiar qualities?

Those are the ones i would attempt to monetize in PPV. All the rest are dead!

Plenty of media outlets make money giving their product away, Television and radio, to just name 2.

Some people pay for HBO because they have special content but free TV networks have a far greater audience and profit margin

As people like Ron Jackson have pointed out the quality of journalism has gone way down, we see that in the non fact checking domain articles that are done by the big media companies.

Do I like Michael ? Yeah ? Would I ever pay to read any domain blog ? Never, why no disrespect for the most part you can get the same news elsewhere except for the authors opinion. Perfect example I already read this story before Michael posted it, and there was talk about this two weeks ago at a big media conference where Barry Diller said the same thing and we talked about it on Namepros.

With Facebook,Twitter, and all the other social media out there along with highly competent blogs that will never charge, it seems to me Mr.Murdoch feels like he has to try something. He will try and because a few will pay they will call it a success, at least when they talk to their shareholders, but most will know this is not going to work for too many. People don’t want to pay for music where at least they think the artists have talent, and they are going to pay for a profession where most people feel there is no talent ? I do not think so but that’s just my opinion.