Toronto Star to charge 9.99 per month for internet content
Posted on: March 13, 2013 - 8:57pm
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Toronto Star to charge 9.99 per month for internet content
Clearly no American, generally, has reason to care about a Canadian paper. But multiple American news sources are also charging now. The Wall Street Journal comes to mind.
The Star had a survey up and I took it. I told them that CBC and Google are two sources of news which will never charge for access, for different reasons, and that I'd use the Star no more if I had to pay.
Would you spend money per month to read news online? How much, if so?
Can you think of a way for newspapers to make money again that doesn't involve a paywall?
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Besides advertisements? Not really, less than 9.99 a month would help, I won't bother those news types since I can get free news from various sources as it stands, forget CBC, there a bunch of others world wise which I can get my daily news, and do.
I would never pay for access to a newspaper site, the only sites I will pay for are those that publish journals. Why pay for a newspaper site when you can get the exact same information quite easily from thousands of free sites? Newspapers have to adapt to the internet and overhaul their business models. The old models are outdated and attempting to charge for information is never going to work. There is plenty of money that can be made from advertising and I think newspapers should attempt to use technology to its fullest to provide people news stories of interest quickly, efficiently and at no cost to the consumer. Charging just drives people to other sources, maybe the really big newspapers can get away with it for a little bit but even the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are shadows of what they used to be.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Regarding the advertising...
I have no direct experience to say, but I've heard from both large and small companies and individuals that internet advertising generates very little income compared to television and radio. I've heard that a click on an add generates a fraction of a cent. I don't know enough figures to compare with the other media, but it can't be anything like as low, even though actions are unnecessary on the part of the viewer (opposed to a click on an ad, the amount of work required to view an ad on TV is infinitely smaller).
But I haven't the foggiest idea how to change that. You can't undercut because it's already way too low. You can't offer superior results because there aren't any certain results in the first place.
I have to consider this a huge problem for we, the people. One of the pillars of a free society is a free media. If the media is getting squeezed out then the pillar crumbles.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
my problem lies in the fact that I don't always read the star, toronto sun or the globe and mail, why would I pay 9.99 for something I don't use all the time, I understand paying for their articles, but I at the same time they give their paper away for free in many places, why would I want to pay for it if they give it away for free, all three major papers do. Maybe if a bunch of papers got together and of a reasonable price (12 or 15 a month) then they could sell advertising at a higher price based on the number of subscribers they have. I mean 9.99 for the star, 6.99 for the Toronto sun and the globe and mail is 19.99 a month, I mean I don't pay a cent now for them, yet to read all three would be about 40 a month, no thanks.
Well I doubt many people read both the Star and the Sun, but your point is still well made.
I've a question for you. What, specifically, do you not like about CBC? I know that opinion wise they are biased, despit my avoidance of opinion articles.
But I haven't seen a single source on all the net which can give me news from every Province the way CBC can and does (I'll acknowledge ahead of time that half the time the main headlines from each Province are identical, but they are never identical across the board, so there is still some variety).
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
cbc is biased that is the biggest reason, and biased is such a bad way as well at times. However I get my news from local news sources. CTV, huffington Post, CBC if it is about NWT, (my home town is from there even though I am born in Toronto), Yukon or PEI, local news papers online as well. I search, people post stuff online, twitter etc, etc. So there is news to found if you search, can be a pain at times though, but I don't mind paying for news if it was done better than what they are proposing, but they are seeking the most amount of money from me, instead of doing something better, like getting together and making more money from advertisers, than strictly from the readers.