Yet another paper I won't be reading online anymore.

I wonder if subscribers will still be able to read articles online...

The Globe also recently increased their delivery rates as well.. It's like they really really don't want me to read it anymore. Done and done, I guess.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

I grew up in a house with a Boston Globe subscription, and I had my own until I moved too far away to get the paper version. Since then, I've gone from reading it every day to most days to once a week to twice a month if I remember. The paper itself has just lowered its reporting standards something fierce and gotten dreadful. In ten years everyone will look back and see that charging for online access was the final death knell. Very, very sad.

@sponica: Supposedly, yes, using this, though I've never tried it myself..

Maybe they are finally embracing the banking industry's model- offer service for free until critical mass adopts it and then start charging- ATM's anyone?

I hope that they figure out some micro payment scheme where I can read one day online for say 25¢ versus subscribing for $19.99 a month or something... And they need to take straight PayPal too since I have nothing else to spend the last $13 in that account on- no I am not getting a Paypal branded credit card either to charge things with...

So I wonder if Google news will pick up the entire article and place it in their cache, and allow you to readit for free like it does with the NY Times?

The New York Times confirmed Thursday that its New England Media Group, which includes the Globe and the Worcester (Mass.) Telephone & Gazette was up for sale. The Globe's Beth Healy reported Friday that Platinum Equity, a private equity firm which last year purchased the San Diego Union-Tribune, had offered $35 million for the group.

NYT paid $1.1bn for the Globe back in 1993... a shame none of their fancy article writers or business and technology analysts had the foresight to see how the Internet would change the value of print media.

My guess is they just assumed the Internet would have a similar impact to their sales as TV, radio and other forms of electronic media. What a massive mistake that turned out to be.

The dumbest thing papers papers have done in recent memory is to give away online content for free.

The death of news is a frightening thing. People say, 'oh, I get all my news online' but where do you think these blogs get it? From the papers that poured their resources in putting an article together.

@econobiker:

Frankly they offer home delivery of their physical product for so little these days I can't see how they can possibly charge anything even close to $19.99/mo ... their best hope is to charge something almost trivial, like $3.95/mo, in the hopes that thousands will "set it and forget it".

They also need to do a better job of making sure that what you end up with is an electronic copy of the paper from a given day, versus links to various stories that happened to have appeared in the paper recently.

I find it hilarious that these papers think anyone is going to pay to read them online. "But people pay for the WSJ online!" Yes...,but you're not the WSJ. You're a generic source of the same information every other newspaper in the world is providing, and the same local information that every TV and radio station is providing...via TV, radio, and their websites. Oh, and the AP and Reuters put all their stuff online for free too.

The only reason people ever bought newspapers was because each newspaper had a monopoly (or near-monopoly) on a specific geographic region. The internets broke that for them. Now it is the newspapers that are broke.

Either figure out how to provide your news on your website and fund it through advertising or something else, or become irrelevant and die. Those are your choices. News is now free - deal with it.

@NewsBunny: If by pouring their resources in putting an article together you mean copying and pasting the AP feed and changing two or three words, then yes.

@NewsBunny: Maybe it's just my local newspaper (Athens, Georgia), but 40% of the weekday paper was advertisements, and 80% of the news they printed was off the AP newswire.

My business gets hit up by their ad department weekly, and I know one of their adspace salespeople from trade associations. They have more Ad space salespeople than they have writers. Hopefully they are an outlier, but if that's the status of most newspapers, I am not surprised they are going extinct.

@NewsBunny: Wrong. Many blogs PRODUCE their own news stories as well. In fact, blogs have became a source for newpapers and TV news to get *their* stories from too.

If newspapers close up because they have an outdated business model, so be it. The times are changing and if you don't adapt you die.

I suggest you read some of the excellent articles on techdirt regarding the subject.

@YouDidWhatNow?: I agree with this very much. The distinctive papers *should* tighten up and make people realize they should pay for quality -- they shouldn't feel like they're competing with the free trash out there. NYT and WSJ -- they can make it on their own with a subscription model. LATimes, maybe.

The rest of the newspapers out there will segment into two markets -- 1) the mediocre mid-sized city papers that simply sell copies because they put in enough of the local news with the national/international AP feed -- these will shrink horribly in terms of content and readership, and 2) the purely local, small town paper that has a dedicated readership for issues that never make it into the big news, and can manage to do so with low overhead costs.

Objective news and reporting, being essential to an open society, is a public good, and is not free. The worst thing I think that can happen is that really good newspapers fail or fall victim to the incredible pressures of the free model. We will be left with only that news that is worthless -- junk spouted by moneyed interests, and the uninformed crap on AM radio.

@YouDidWhatNow?: I agree with this very much. The distinctive papers *should* tighten up and make people realize they should pay for quality -- they shouldn't feel like they're competing with the free trash out there. NYT and WSJ -- they can make it on their own with a subscription model. LATimes, maybe.

The rest of the newspapers out there will segment into two markets -- 1) the mediocre mid-sized city papers that simply sell copies because they put in enough of the local news with the national/international AP feed -- these will shrink horribly in terms of content and readership, and 2) the purely local, small town paper that has a dedicated readership for issues that never make it into the big news, and can manage to do so with low overhead costs.

Objective news and reporting, being essential to an open society, is a public good, and is not free. The worst thing I think that can happen is that really good newspapers fail or fall victim to the incredible pressures of the free model. We will be left with only that news that is worthless -- junk spouted by moneyed interests, and the uninformed crap on AM radio.

News from a newspaper! I laugh. Fluff articles...that's all and celebrity divorces.

I'll get all the my news from Al Jazeera!

Newspaper executives are still in their legacy mode of charging money for the actual newspaper. Of course there were printing costs and delivery costs. So they had to charge something. They see costs in running web sites, so they want to charge for that.

TV and radio stations, however, have been successful at delivering news without such costs. Local network affiliates do that all the time. Sure, cable companies probably have to pay CNN and Fox due to the high popularity. But the consumer still sees it the same way.

Charging for web news will be problematic. Where people want so much from one source they will subscribe, then that works. Lots of people subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, so doing it online isn't a stretch. However, there are people who buy the newspapers on the street, too, and with coin. That will make for some complications in setting up web site charges ... how to pay?

Will TV stations do this and try to charge money for what they previously provided free based on advertising support? It would kill them first if they did. But if they don't charge, then they will have the upper hand on local newspapers. They just need to do better to shift their style to offer all news in both text and video.

If everyone charges, a new class of news source will eventually emerge.

One big issue, though, is the advertising. The problem is over the web there is an expectation of people clicking on ads. This is just all wrong. Sure, some people do. But advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV, has never been like that. It has always been impression advertising. And radio/TV has also had the difficulty of accurately measuring the impression counts. Even newspapers and magazines are not measuring the effectiveness all that well. Yet when those media technologies were king, that advertising model worked well.

We need to use the impression model for advertising online, too. Consider an ad for a major soft drink company. They do this to keep their brand in people's minds. Then people buy that product in a store. Or they find out about new products and buy those in the store some day. These advertisers would not be clicked on. Why would you click on a CocaCola or Pepsi ad? But these companies can't even advertise online now because site operators know that no one would click on them, and there would be no ad revenue based on that model.

So we need to switch to using the impression advertising model online. It also needs to be done in non-intrusive and unblockable ways (I can tell site designers how). Then advertising supported web sites can work.

@kepler11: I am in no way challenging the right of papers like WSJ to operate with exclusively a subscription model. I suspect they would likely survive on that model. I do have doubts about NYT and WP. There will be alternatives sprouting up. Maybe they will figure out how to make advertising work. I agree, news is not, and cannot, be free, if it is to have any quality at all. Free blogs are a great source of information, but they are not the "daily news".

@econobiker: You could donate the last $13 to Consumerist!

@emis: Um, they charge about $12 a week for 7 day home delivery. So I wouldn't call that cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

It used to be you'd get enough savings in coupons to subsidize your subscription, but that doesn't happen any more.

I think it's be reasonable for The Globe to charge for exclusive content or extras and they could not put everything on their site up for free, but I'm not paying them a penny to find out the Sox score. I'll get it from the Herald or somewhere else.

I get bombarded with ads on their site. I'm not paying to get bombarded with more.

I do get home delivery of the paper, and I guess I'll stick with that (barring that there is no free access in conjunction with a subscription).

I've worked for several newspapers. As others have said, they are stuck in their old business model and are being outmaneuvered. The Globe has been so iconic for so long, they can't imagine that people won't pay for it, not realizing that declining physical subscriptions do indicate that people are not going to pay for it.

Some random blogger isn't going to have the credibility and resources of The Globe. But I can't imagine the other local news outlets aren't going to try to capitalize on boston.com's pay policy

@calacak: Give me some examples instead of saying 'many'. And I'll give you more examples of blogs re-writing from papers and broadcast.

@veg-o-matic: I only get it on Sundays, and 75% of the time it doesn't show up. This is after they told me I couldn't get it at all because they don't deliver to my area... I'm not in the Berkshires, I'm 10 minutes south of Boston!

I only get it for the coupons anyway, they pay for the paper and thensome every week.

If it keeps us from only having the Herald left in this town, then it's worth paying...

It'll never work. Know why? Papers don't print news. They print hearsay. By the time itz actually news itz moved from front page to page 12. By then... no one cares. Good luck with that.

@veg-o-matic: It's a strange thing. I often think to myself how much I'd like to get our local paper delivered, but the rates are way too high. How many people have the same opinion as myself? If they lowered the cost by just a couple dollars, would they have more subscribers to make up the cost?

I think newspapers, in addition to all their other problems, never understood that they needed to sell themselves. When I was growing up, everybody got the paper. But, my contemporaries and myself don't find it necessary and there's nothing to convince us otherwise. There's no advertising for our local rag.

Then again, our local rag has a handful of local interest pieces and all the rest is AP feeds. Pointless, honestly.

@emis: The internet was also completely different back in 1993. Things didn't look as nice as they do now and bandwidth, and even home computers were still making an appearance.

Things had changed considerably... I think it would have been impossible to predict. I'm trying to think of something so basic and simple today that would could try to make a prediction about tomorrow, but can't think of anything.

Back in 1993, the Globe was probably worth that amount as MANY people did rely on print news vs. online news.

I wouldn't mind paying to read my local paper online if they would clean up their website. It's absolutely unreadable.

They recently raised the price of the paper version from 50 to 75 cents a day. I just canceled my weekend/holiday only subscription because of delivery issues and the fact that I get most of my news online anyway, from here, CNN, MSN, and various other sources. Seriously, half the Sunday paper I've already read and I got tired of calling all the time when it wasn't out there. If I really feel like reading it or getting the circulars, I can go up to the gas station and buy one.

I will miss the circulars. But I can go up to Walgreens and pick one up in the store.

I am sorry, but people need to realize the news is NOT free. Newspapers hire and pay the salaries of hundreds of reporter who go out and write stories and report news all over the community than can not be found elsewhere. Google, Yahoo and other news sites grab that news for free and hand it out.

News is not free. It costs money to produce and since most and more internet users seem to expect free news online instead of paying for a subscription to their print newspaper... SOMEONE has to pay these employees. Money has to come from somewhere.

SO, newspapers are now being forced to lock down their web site and charge for reading the stories online just like they charge for a copy of the printed paper.

Should newspapers hand out their "merchandise" for free and ask employees to work for nothing?

@Skaperen:

I have been consulting in the newspaper industry for decades and can tell you that print advertisers are not willing to pay anything near what they pay for print ads online.

Also, most larger clients REFUSE to advertise on local newspaper sites, they want people going to their own. SO, a print newspaper that brings in tens of millions of print advertising revenue to pay for the staff can't make a fraction of that online... paid by click or not.

Newspapers are stuck. People think they can get the news for free online and skip a print newspaper subscription AND advertisers who spend millions in print won't pay for online ads.

What is left except try and charge for content? Should newspapers just shut down, lay off thousands of local residents and let local news go unreported?

@PLATTWORX: You're right. News is not free. But it has become obvious that the newspaper business model is a failed one. While I feel sad that newspaper employees are likely to become laid off, I think it would be exceedingly foolish to pretend it wise to keep a failed business model afloat. This attempt will not meet with success-- how do you introduce 'paid news content' into an environment where news content exists for free-- and is actually the normal state of things?

Sure, they have every expectation to get paid for the work they do. The music industry once had the same expectation-- and they had to reconcile their failed business model to the new reality of the Internet. Slowly, they're putting it back together... not making as much money as they once did, but they ARE profitable. There IS money to be made in the news industry-- I truly believe that-- but it's not going to be accomplished by clinging to outdated expectations.

@wild homes loves you but chooses darkness!:

Then I must ask what "business model" you suggest newspapers use when people stop paying for the printed news and local and national advertisers are not interested in advertising on local newspaper webs sites or not at a price anywhere near what they paid for print ads?

How exactly does a newspaper report local news when no one will pay for the employees without charging for the content since other plans have failed.

Does knowing what's happening in your town and if the mayor is embezzling worth anything? Without your local paper watching, you'll never know.

@RandomHookup: Although I dislike the Globe probably for the same reasons you dislike the Herald, it's always better to be in a two newspaper town.

@guymandude: Coming from someone who can't even be bothered to use "it's" I really don't take your opinion for much.

@PLATTWORX: I'm not in the newspaper business, my friend. I wouldn't pretend to have any idea what they're supposed to do. But lately our nation seems to be caught up in the idea of propping up business models (and entire industries, as well) that are unsuccessful. The simple fact is, businesses have failed for years-- and as a businessman, you need to identify where there's a need, and address that need as you're able. THAT is how you make money-- by providing goods and services that people are willing to pay money for.

So I guess what I'm saying is: maybe the newspaper business (at least as we recognise it today) isn't MEANT to survive.

Cheers!

@icezod: .tfel ot thgir morf daer ot nrael ot evah uoy neht tuB

I wouldn't read or watch anything published or broadcast by that Australian jerk anyway. As for newspapers, their time is coming to an end.

@PLATTWORX: Newspapers have a crap-load of ads, many of them for scams. If they can eliminate printing and delivery costs, they could be free and increase profits. But like the music companies, they demand fantastic profits, and will die rather than submit to reality

@cmdrsass: You hate the Globe for being sensationalistic and pandering to the lowest common denominator?

It's not the political stance of the Herald's editorial page that bugs me, but the tacky way they approach the news. Rupert's tabloids haven't done much to raise the level of discourse.

@flyingember: From a business perspective, if everyone gets in on this, the news outlets will win. Just think, The Consumerist would have nothing to link to (except maybe Consumer Reports articles.) How many popular "news" pages don't actually publish news, only link to it: Drudge, FARK, Google News, Yahoo News, Gawker media, Slashdot, etc...

@veg-o-matic:

The Wall Street Journal has been charging to access their online material for years. This is going to be more commonplace as mass media moves away from paper to online sources. They have to keep the lights on somehow.

However insane they are for doing it, this really is the only way to sort out the anxiety content providers have. their industry is failing, and nothing will make them understand how it works until some large project like this fails

The big winner will be news aggregator like google/yahoo news. I mean I don't even go to each respective publication's site anymore. Simply use RSS feed from the aggregators.

Boston.com is my homepage, and has been for years, but I will not be paying for a subscription for the website. I almost wonder if this is some strategy to get it sold off sooner (maybe in the hopes that a local owner will buy it as soon as possible in order to reverse the policy?) I really have no idea but it just makes me wonder.

@spankyshay:

Just think about how many people only want to read about a specific topic and therefore go to a specific website to get information on it.

That's why everyone here goes here.

Now, think about how you will only be able to read 1 or 2% of the articles here if you subscribe to, say, a half dozen web-news sources. Obviously, this means consumerist is dead.

But, will people who aren't interested in "general purpose" news bother subscribing? Probably not.

And those who want general purpose news, why wouldn't they get it for free off TV every day?

And there you have it. If print media wants to die, it needs everyone to go online, pay-only now.

@NewsBunny:

It doesn't work the other way, either.

My local newspaper charged for online access for what was probably a decade. It was done a bit stupidly, you HAD to get the print version to get the online version (if you didn't want to receive the print version, they would donate it to a school).

During this time, they managed to go from a being in their own HUGE private newspaper factory, down to being an entire floor of a mall, and now they are down to a small corner area of the same mall.

That's because their business plan was to cut almost all their reporters and rely solely on AP/Reuters feeds. You know, the same ones that all their competition put out FOR FREE on the internet. The same ones the local TV news reports on TV for FREE (Except, unlike our newspaper, if it's local they'll go on scene to do a special report). The average 100 page paper of theirs includes approximately 10 stories written by their resident staff, covering perhaps 2 of those 100 pages.

The proof is that if you charge for someone people can get in a better format for free, you will go out of business (You might go out of business offering it for free, too, but you stand a better chance of winning). Of course, who the hell didn't know that, apart from newspapers?