As print newspapers fail, where’s the business opportunity?
We’ve heard before that traditional print media was on its way to extinction. But in this recession it’s finally becoming true. 100-year-old city newspapers are dying.
Staring at new media startups is one of the biggest opportunities in a century. It’s not just about blogging and the low costs of competing with traditional media. It’s about becoming the local media and replacing printed newspapers.
I see three types of print organizations standing five or ten years from now:
1. Major, nationwide or international publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. These premium publications can charge for online and print subscribers because they provide a good product covering multiple beats.
2. News bureaus. These are the ones sending reporters around the globe to cover international events, wars, etc. They sell their content to #3.
3. Local online newspapers. This is the billion dollar opportunity.
Individual blogs cannot replace local newspapers. Most blogs are merely echo chambers reporting on what the traditional media says. Blogs don’t cover some of the important minutia that local newspapers grasp.
The local online newspaper of the future will have paid reporters covering beats. Many of these reporters will be part-time, but they won’t be like typical bloggers. They’ll be real reporters. Other content will be sourced from the news bureaus, as well as local topical bloggers. It will look similar to most newspapers’ existing online web sites, but without the traditional print fuss.
These online newspapers will charge subscriber fees for most of the content and also sell ads.
There are two ways to enter the market. One is to have a city’s category-killer domain name, such as Austin.com. While good, I think the better approach is to buy up the existing newspapers’ web site (assuming it has a good brand), such as Statesman.com here in Austin .
The good news for entrepreneurs is they shouldn’t expect much of a fight from the existing local papers. These papers won’t switch to an online-only structure until it’s too late. We’re already seeing papers that fold deciding to spin out the online edition. The biggest source for competition is likely the local TV news networks.
Mark my words, this is one of the biggest opportunities staring us in the face in a long, long time.
ChrisR says
That’s an interesting idea with potential. However, wouldn’t that only work with bigger cities. I don’t think small town papers will make you that much money or it might, I don’t know. I know where I live a nice residential island known as Brigantine, NJ we have two popular print journals that everyone gets, every week. One is free, the other a quarter. I don’t see them losing any steam and going strictly online and as small local journals there is probably no hurry to do so. However, I think the opposite of the local county newspaper, The Press of Atlantic City which services more areas and, I think, does better with it’s online presence than it’s print edition. I have a subscription to the print edition but only read it online. Not sure where I’m going with this and I no longer remember what my point was….oh well.
Andrew Allemann says
ChrisR – I agree with you. I had top 50 Metros in mind while writing this. I think the suburban and small town papers are actually doing OK.
Curious says
What if you dont have Austin.com but AustinNews.com (just an example) or statenameNews.com. Is that also a good domain?
Andrew Allemann says
Those are OK. (Actually StatesmanNews.com isn’t because it’s a trademark). The point is having one of these two domains will give you a leg up in marketing.
David J Castello says
The solution is take the infrastructure of a Statesman.com and combine it with the superbrand power of a Austin.com. It’s the obvious move and eventually both of these industries will figure it out.
morgan says
great post! You bring-up some interesting ideas. I am interested to know what role you think Twitter will play in the future.
Morgan
Publisher -Domainvestors.tv
Craig says
Hi,
They already do that over hhere in Ireland
Take http://www.irishtimes.ie for ect
Many other news papers do it also
It is a great idea though.
Bruce Marler says
This is spot on, the opportunity is there and many people are going to be successful moving to a model that is very similar to what you are describing. This is happening faster than I think many expected.
RKB says
Andrew,
I fully agree with your analysis about this huge opportunity.
I may like to add that the following kind of domains are all very good fit for this opportunity:
1. Country/State/City+News.tld
2. Country/State/City+Blog.tld
3. Country/State/City+TV.tld
4. Country/State/City+Tube.tld
Any one who has these kind of domains, is sitting pretty good imo.
Pete Kosednar says
For around $10 bucks anyone can start up an online news service! This news stuff is a bunch of hard work. This past year I quietly broke a few national stories including Scottsdale’s Danica Patrick’s speeding tickets (2)!
Live webcam tv is a possible future site addition.
RKB says
Btw, there is another story today that NYT may close Boston Globe. This is huge.