You may believe that no one spins the news more than politicians but there's a new contender in the race. I could not believe my eyes at the reaction from some folks in the digital media world to a new study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The latest report from this distinguished study took a look at the attempts to find a new business model fornewspapers and magazines. The big question of the moment is the balance between free content and pay. Simple ads don't seem to be the answer but putting content behind pay walls has very strong negatives with the consumers. At least that's what you might think till you hear the spin merchants get a hold of the report.
I began reading responses that talked about "strong" positive responses to paying for content. And even greater excitement that among those of us who spend a lot of time on web sites the approval rate is even higher. Wow, I thought maybe this is counter intuitive. Then I looked at the numbers. The percentage of folks who click on ads at least sometimes on web pages? 21%. Among those who surf everyday it goes the whole way up to 28% and for folks who visit the same site once a day, the most dedicated users, it's all the way up to 37%. That's right they're all excited about numbers that leave 63% or more of the users in the "Keep your ads to yourself" category. You'll also hear that 81% of people said they don't mind having ads on the website if it means they get the content without an additional fee. That sounds better right? Sure till you drill down and discover they told the folks at Pew they don't mind the ads BECAUSE THEY CAN EASILY IGNORE THEM! Advertising that no one is paying any attention to is a waste of money. And trust me when I tell you advertisers HATE wasting money. To be honest a lot of them don't like spending money on advertising whether it works or not.
Let me make it clear that it isn't the folks at Pew that are all rosy about this. The Pew report goes on to say that no single business model has shown any significant strength and that it may not be a single mode that wins in the end. Each entity will have to find their own way of staying afloat with whatever creative method of paying the bills they can make work. Ads, subscription programs that eliminate the ads, some free/some paid content. And of course you have to get the consumer to buy in. The problem is that right we the consumers like the system we have. Mostly free, with advertising we can ignore or block. Changing that will be the hardest sell.
Call that the View From the Phlipside.
"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY. You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010
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