This week the BBC reported that Google enabled newspapers to restrict their content, which was previously shown by the search engine. After the fifth click, under the revised First Click Free programme, readers will be directed to subscription or payment pages. The move was in response to increasing criticisms that Google made profit off of the newspapers’ content.
Interestingly enough, this news complemented a presentation the Daily Hampshire Gazette delivered to my multimedia journalism class on Tuesday. Since 2004, the local newspaper covering the Hampshire county has put most of its stories behind a firewall.
“We were criticized when we first did it,” said the publisher Jim Foudy. The Gazette received emails asking why readers should pay for its content, when even the New York Times was available for free online. Well, because reputable small-scale newspapers can afford to take this risk—their content is unique enough and won’t face the type of competition the Times does.
“What we do best is local news in the Hampshire country,” said Foudy. The Gazette is not trying to be the Boston Globe, he added. It is a small community publication that wants to deliver local news.
At first, when all newspapers shifted their content online for free, the Gazette followed suit. But it soon changed its strategy, realizing that the money expected to pour in from online advertising, never did. The local businesses didn’t agree to pay the same amount for online banners as they paid for print.
This dynamic surprised me. Didn’t advertisers want to measure their return on investment on the Web? In the past, as Foudy observed, newspapers used to measure readership by letters to the editor and calls. Now, they could measure traffic and demographics.
Yet businesses shy away from this new advertising channel. Maybe because they are local and traditional vendors; maybe because they don’t have an online presence. For some reason, the Gazette’s advertisers felt more secure about their banners staying in print. “Attitudes haven’t caught up with reality,” Foudy said.
Sooner rather than later, this reality will change. Until then, newspapers will be fire-walling their online content.
Photo Credit: Giuseppe Bognanni