And in a world where clickbait and Tiktoks and Elon Musk tweeting is all put out and used as “news content” how do you figure out what people will and won’t pay for?
Read recently that CNN is starting to gently ask its audience to pay for online content. Guess it’s another revenue stream, and maybe it can’t hurt. But can it help? And if people on their site are consuming a vast amount of content, does it really mean they value it? Guess they’ll find out.
I should mention CNN is the place where I got my start in the news business. And mostly today, I’m going to be talking about my own habits.
There are a heck of a lot of stories that I open online, but then because they’re at least partially behind a paywall, I don’t read them.
And I really don’t care. Sure, I may be missing out on something that would’ve amused or even educated me. Sure, I would’ve appreciated the content if it was free, or even if I’d been served some ads. But assuming I’m genuinely interested in something because I click on it–and basing a business model on that–is a path to immolation. Yet, that seems to be what a lot of mainstream media is doing these days.
So what would make something interesting enough for me to pay for? Well, let’s examine what I do pay for: it’s really two extremes.
- 1) Individual journalists I trust.
2) Aggregators. I kind of hate this: I always want content to have more value that distribution. But fact is, for me, it’s true.
Which means I really don’t trust publishers, I guess. Probably because I’ve been burned so many times by a sexy headline that turns out to be a nothing story. A waste of time cost that I don’t want to turn into a real cost. (Not that this doesn’t happen while tracking individual journalists, but it’s something I can manage.)
There’s a 3rd category, now that I’m thinking about it: where I pay a subscription fee for something that has absolutely nothing to do with news and editorial content, and then I will use the news and editorial content provided by the site. I subscribe to the New York Times, grudgingly, for games. (I say grudgingly because I still won’t forgive them for not providing access to the Acrostic Puzzle online. I mean, even if they don’t make it solveable on line, how hard is it to take something that’s in the paper anyway, and scan it and upload it?)
I would never subscribe to the Times for news. I don’t value what it does deliver me enough. I do subscribe to the Washington Post for news. But I do use the Times as a news source because I subcribe to it for games.
So that’s a winning strategy, I guess.
I guess what I’m saying though is the powers behind mainstream media are making another monumental blunder if they’re thinking that just because I appear to be interested in a certain piece of content, I really am interested in that content, and they can make some money off me with it potentially. Because that’ll never happen. And my appearing to be interested means nothing.
So what’s the right approach?
1) Do things cheaper and support it with advertising. I don’t need slick or beautiful. It still doesn’t play online at least in a news format anyway.
2) Aggregate: I might (and do) pay for that if it’s cheap, and the content is compelling.
3) Give me raw tools with which I can harvest my own news sources.
Forget about identifying my interests and serving me based on a list your algorithms are generating. And selling me based on that too. And then rubbing your head wondering why you’re not making any money off me when you’re giving me the chance to pay for “exactly what I want.” Because, as I said, what I’m looking at is not what I’m interested in paying for. And I don’t think it’s just me.