La Presse to go digital only and give an iPad with 3 years subscription

[Francis Vachon]

Detail here: http://www.j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=6254

[Fred Lum]

Interesting news but I wonder if readers will indeed fork over for an online subscription if there's no print content option at all.

[Warren Toda]

Actually, it's a typo from the French to English translation. The publisher didn't say a "free iPad" but rather a "free iPed". 


Thank goodness the La Presse publisher reads this forum  , since this idea was suggested a year ago:
http://npac.ca/forums/index.php?topic=3574.0

La Presse said it'll switch to digital-only in 3 to 5 years which is a conveniently vague time frame. I'm guessing that's when its various union contracts expire? 

I would've thought that the Globe and Mail, which is part of Bell Media, would have done the free iPad thing by now. Or the Toronto Star, which is somehow partnered with Rogers, would have done something/anything by now.

[Moe Doiron]

I've always felt that publishers all over North America have been chomping at the bit to move in the same direction but didn't want to be the guinea pigs in the bold experiment. They are all waiting for someone to make the first move so they can watch from a distance to see if it works.

Roughly 50% of the cost of running a newspaper goes to newsprint paper, ink, printing contracts, circulation, home delivery, recycling programs and all things related to producing a disposable daily product on paper every day.

If you eliminate all of that overhead, and sadly a large number of production staff, and still employ reporters, photographers, videographers, some editors and designers you wouldn't need nearly the same advertising revenue stream to produce an excellent digital news product.

[Derek Ruttan]

...and if journalists and ad-reps got together they wouldn't need owners siphoning off the profits. Once a viable online formula is discovered, what do we need ownership for? Currently they provide the presses and the distribution system, but if those things are not needed then employee owned journalism companies should be able to prosper.

[Warren Toda]

Novelty of iPad newspapers is dying fast. (link to UK Guardian).

For a newspaper business largely treading water, Apple went some way to inventing the future with its market-leading tablet device. But for those not operating in the media stratosphere, the novelty is fading fast.

Will news apps reinvent the future of journalism? "Oh god, I hope not," groans Aron Pilhofer, the New York Times' interactive editor.

Conde Nast's "undoubtedly expensive" headlong rush into iPad apps was a "fundamental misunderstanding" online reading [sic] ...

(Speaking of Conde Nast, Andrew Siegal, the senior vice president of strategy at its parent company Advance Publications, said on Sunday that Steve Jobs "controls the world" of digital publishing. "Entire cities are trembling in terror at what Apple's doing," he added, somewhat untimely.)

[Warren Toda]

The Newspaper Association of America just released 2010 numbers for newspaper ad dollars: total advertising dollars for US print papers (USD $22.8 billion) is the lowest since 1984. If you adjust for inflation, then it's the lowest since the mid-1950s.

But, as you might guess, ad dollars for online, (USD $3 billion for 2010), has been going up for the past 7 years.

Also, total paid print circulation in the US is going nowhere but down. The 2009 numbers are the lowest since the late 1940s.

...what do we need ownership for?

Corporate ownership is needed to make sure newspaper profits are properly spent on hockey teams and arenas, cell phone companies, online music+video stores, car insurance brokers, online coupon companies, online used car businesses, ...   

[Warren Toda]

An update to this story that La Presse is moving towards being digital only.

[Bernard Brault]

Warren,

it's not done yet…
There are still lots of ads in the paper version.

I still love to see my pictures printed with my name under;-)

Bernard