Sam Zell is happy to let Rupert Murdoch do the risky work when it comes to charging for online content.
There are probably a lot of reasons for that, but one significant one might be that Murdoch still has content he can charge for. Tribune, unfortunately, has spent the last couple years reducing what it has to sell.
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Exactly right, Paul.
The otherwise loathsome Murdoch is exactly right in his (and sidekick Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton’s terrific speech http://tinyurl.com/ykxonwo ) contention that quality sells.
The WSJ makes pots of money by having a product behind the wall that people feel they need — of course, there’s more expense account dough for business news than most other things. But they’re not getting so many readers with briefs and boilerplate.
The Tribune satraps have so depleted staffs and unique coverage that they produce too little to make the fee worthwhile, I fear. The idea, spun by 50-year-old editors, that this or that is the way to attract dimly imagined young readers ignored the sad truth that the young readers are unattractable and that throwing out the settled but older readers in the process leaves them with the mess we have now.
The Courant and other papers — with the webs in tow — need to emphasize quality and material that one can’t get anywhere else. Fender-benders in Wilton isn’t the answer. The trap of local news is that “local” seldom extends beyond the reader’s ZIP code and news from even the next town is uninteresting. So you might as well aim higher. High end business coverage. Arts. Projects and investigative efforts. It may be too late to build the walls around newspapers anymore but, as you point out, there simply must be something in there worth the dime.
It is very spicy and hard-hitting but the Hinton speech really is worth reading.
denis