The Bricks That Build the Clicks: Newsroom Investments and Newspaper Online Performance

As the world embraces the Internet for media consumption, the concept of a hybrid newspaper—a printed newspaper with a companion Web site—is becoming more prevalent. Many hope that online advertising revenue (OAR) will help newspapers make up for losses in print (offline) revenue. However, there is little research that has empirically investigated whether and how investment in the “bricks” (i.e., the newsroom staff and resources that produce news content) will help to build “clicks” (i.e., more online visitors and, subsequently, OAR). This article examines the issue via an econometric analysis of 12 years of longitudinal data from a hybrid newspaper. The results show that the basic success of the clicks model depends on the investment in the bricks of the newspaper (i.e., its newsroom). Specifically, although news gathering is a very expensive part of the news business, it is also a creator of value and directly brings in OAR in addition to print advertising revenue. Therefore, as newspapers seek to capture more OAR, they may need to increase, rather than decrease, investment levels in the newsroom.     

Bouncing off the Paywall – Understanding Misalignments Between Local Newspaper Value Propositions and Audience Responses

ABSTRACT

Declining advertising revenue and print copy sales have propelled extensive paywall experiments in local newspapers to generate new revenue and fund local journalism. The success of these experiments is ultimately depending on whether or not they deliver the value that customers require. This article studies local newspapers’ potential to build successful paywalls by conducting a two-sided analysis of paywall value propositions and local news audiences’ responses to these value propositions. Drawing on mixed methods – in-depth interviews with 20 newspaper managers and a national survey (N = 1586) among local newspaper audiences – our study identifies a major gap between intended value of paywalls and customer value perception and behavior. These are misalignments between the intended attractiveness of paywalled content and audience attitude toward this content, and misalignments between access to paywalled content and use. Local newspapers’ offerings are particularly misaligned with younger, lower income and lower news interest customers. When these groups hit a paywall, they most likely bounce off.     

Chinese Newspaper Ownership,Corporate Strategies,and Business Models in a Globalizing World

This study takes Beijing Youth Daily (BYD), Beijing's largest newspaper in terms of advertising revenue and second largest in terms of circulation, as a case study to examine and analyze how globalization influences the ownership, corporate strategies, and business models of local newspaper organizations in China; and, thus, accelerates Chinese-style capitalism and media convergence. Declining advertising revenue and the loss of readers due to the digital revolution and the availability of multimedia news channels are global challenges that face newspapers around the world. BYD is no exception. In response, BYD has shifted from an exclusively state ownership model to a split or dual-track management model that has allowed foreign capital into the business operations while the party/state still retains ideological control over the news content. BYD has reoriented its corporate strategies and carried out structural reforms, building a media conglomerate via new titles, acquisitions, concentrations, and convergences; and developed its business models with advertising as a major revenue source. All these measures are market-oriented and intended to maximize newspaper profits by pursuing economies of scale and scope.     

PAID CONTENT STRATEGIES FOR NEWS WEBSITES

This study uses qualitative research interviews and a survey to quantify and analyse business models at online newspapers in the UK. Senior editors and executives reported that news websites rely on advertising income to a greater extent than their print counterparts. Despite this, British news sites continue to charge users for some content, although to a varying degree. The fact that online editions still contribute barely a tenth of total revenues explains this experimental approach towards business strategy. Although paid-for content has mostly failed as a mechanism for the online news business in the past, changes in technology and net culture may mean that it is becoming an option again. The authors examine what content is being charged for and why, and investigate: how the 12 newspapers studied are balancing the need to develop additional revenue streams with the demand for traffic in a buoyant advertising market; the extent to which cannibalisation of the print parent is still a concern; the complementary benefits of developing digital products; strategies towards archived content; the value of columnist content to online users; the success of digital editions and email alerts; the potential of mobile services; and the rapidly developing number of online services and commercial partnerships hosted by newspapers on the Web.     

Paying for What? How Much? And Why (Not)? Predictors of Paying Intent for Multiplatform Newspapers

Propelled by the recent economic recession that caused substantial declines in advertising revenue, some major newspapers have renewed their efforts to find alternative revenue models. This renewed interest in paid content strategy triggered another round of debates on the viability of the “paywall.” To address the recurring industry debate, this study, based on a national survey of 767 U.S. online adults, systematically evaluated users' paying intent for different newspaper formats, the amount they are willing to pay, as well as users' responses to various payment models being considered by the industry. Results showed the print edition outperforms other formats (Web & “apps”) in terms of usage, preference, and paying intent; and is perceived as the most valuable platform. Paying intent for the online formats (Web & apps) was weak, and so was people's response to each of the 6 payment models under study. Therefore, how users are charged does not make much difference—whether they are charged does. The analysis also identified the predictors of paying intent for newspaper formats and different payment models. Although multiplatform news delivery has become a reality, paying intent for digital news content remains elusive.     

Webcasting Business Models of Clicks-and-Bricks and Pure-Play Media: A Comparative Study of Leading Webcasters in South Korea and the United States

This article identifies the business models of leading Webcasters in the United States and South Korea and proposes a cross-cultural framework to analyze the determinants of business models. The file transmission methods, content strategies, and revenue sources of clicks-and-bricks and pure-play Webcasters were compared in the study. After analyzing the business practices of 48 leading Webcasters--using a content analysis of their sites--we found that the content aggregator model and the branded content model are the 2 most commonly used business models of leading Webcasters in the United States and South Korea. Although clicks-and-bricks and pure-play Webcasters in both countries have a similar reliance on advertising as their major source of revenue, they employ different content strategies to their own media's advantages. Korean Webcasters are more likely to use pay-per-view as a revenue source than U.S. Webcasters.     

The Economic Advantage of Being the “Voice of the Majority”

This article analyzes price competition in a duopolistic newspaper industry, where politically differentiated newspapers compete in 2 distinct markets: circulation and advertising. Assuming that 1 of the newspapers represents the “voice of the majority,” the theory of the circulation spiral is investigated and whether the interdependence between newspapers' demands in the circulation and advertising markets favors the majority's newspaper to the detriment of the minority's newspaper is investigated.     

NEWS ACCURACY IN SWITZERLAND AND ITALY

Nearly 80 years of accuracy research in the United States has documented that the press frequently errs, but empirical study about news accuracy elsewhere in the world is absent. This article presents an accuracy audit of Swiss and Italian daily regional newspapers. Replicating US research, the study offers a trans-Atlantic perspective of news accuracy. To compare newspaper accuracy in Switzerland and Italy to longitudinal accuracy research in the United States, the study followed closely the methodology pioneered by Charnley (1936) and adapted by Maier (2005). News sources found factual inaccuracy in 60 percent of Swiss newspaper stories they reviewed, compared to 48 percent of US and 52 percent of Italian newspapers examined. The results show that newspaper inaccuracy—and its corrosive effect on media credibility—transcends national borders and journalism cultures. Nowadays, digitization offers new ways of implementing correction policies. Media organizations need, however, to adapt to these changes and to adapt their structures in particular to new forms of participative and interactive two-way communication.     

Qualitative Media Measures: Newspaper Experiences

We seek to understand the experience of reading a newspaper. Qualitative and quantitative research methods identify 44 distinct dimensions of the newspaper reading experience. Using statistical models, these experiences are compared across a random sample of 101 daily U.S. newspapers to examine the extent that the experiences vary both across newspapers and among readers of a specific newspaper. Also, hierarchical linear models are used to study the association between readership and each of the 44 experiences. This shows which experiences have the strongest associations with readership and whether the strength of association varies across newspapers. By measuring experiences, media management can improve both content and advertising, ultimately increasing readership.     

Pick your language: how riot reporting differs between English and Hindi newspapers in India

Riot reporting is one aspect of newspaper coverage that can drive people into the streets in acts of collective protest or violence. Media observers and scholars have proposed that the language of Indian newspapers, be it English or vernacular, partially dictates the kinds of riot events reported and the quality of those reports. I tested whether this conventional wisdom holds by investigating the content of Indian riot coverage in the English Times of India and Hindu Hindustan. While Hindustan emphasized official statements and interviews with political parties, neither newspaper accurately represented the actual number of riots in their reporting. In fact, coverage in both papers followed predictable patterns likely driven by a new focus on selling newspapers at any cost in order to increase advertising revenue. This study contributes to a growing literature highlighting the similarities between media outlets and the degree to which their reporting is removed from actual events.     

EDITORS' NOTE

This study examines certain changes made within the Russian newspaper industry both before and after the political transformations occurring in the former Soviet Union. Although these changes began after Gorbachev came to power, the most dramatic changes took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The political economy perspective provides a useful means to explain the relation between these socioeconomic transitions and the newspaper industry. Since the failed coup of August 1991, the Russian media have attempted to adapt to conditions persistent with the free market economy. As a result of the free market economy, the Russian newspaper industry currently tends to depend on advertising revenue for survival.     

The Morality of May 2, 2011: A Content Analysis of U.S. Headlines Regarding the Death of Osama bin Laden

Following the death of Osama bin Laden in the late hours of May 1, 2011, many print newspapers throughout the United States and the world ran front-page coverage of his death the following day. Although public support for bin Laden's death was largely consistent, newspaper headlines across the country varied in their presentation of the story, from “Got the Bastard!” to a more stoic “bin Laden dead.” Content analysis derived from the model of intuitive morality and exemplars (MIME) was applied to explain variance in headlines as a function of the dominant political philosophy found in different areas of the United States—philosophies rooted in moral salience structures. The MIME suggests a reciprocal relationship between basic motivations underlying moral judgment for distinct audiences and media content produced for those audiences. Consistent with predictions, findings suggest that newspapers in conservative-leaning regions presented the story as a patriotic “killing” (an emphasis on authority and loyalty), whereas newspapers from liberal-leaning regions were more likely to present it in terms of justice restoration (an emphasis on fairness and reciprocity).     

Using Reader Preferences to Optimize News Content: A Method and a Case Study

This article introduces the use of choice-based conjoint analysis to measure the content preferences of newspaper readers. Its importance lies in its role as part of an economic theory of newspaper finance that connects various measures of news quality to circulation and to circulation revenue. In addition, choice-based conjoint provides another way to operationalize “quality” in terms of how much readers like various kinds of content and the relative amounts of that liking. Content preferences were obtained from a large sample of readers of a newspaper of about 100,000 in circulation from the Southeastern United States using the proposed methodology and subsequently, the results were used by the newspaper to modify its content accordingly. Four months after the content changes were made, the publisher of the newspaper reported a significant maintenance of circulation even as print price was increased by 75%. The findings are consistent with the economic model of newspaper demand, and suggests that preferences measured using choice-based conjoint provide impetus for making key management decisions.     

#SocialJournalism: Local News Media on Twitter

A content analysis of 4,507 tweets from 60 local news organizations in the United States was conducted to examine Twitter strategies used by the local news industry. Results indicate that local news organizations in the United States mainly used Twitter as an additional platform for news dissemination. While local TV stations and newspapers differed significantly in their use of tweet structures, content, and strategies, both followed the similar practices of their traditional media portals. In addition, the number of followers and total tweets of a news organization’s Twitter account, use of photos, hashtags, usernames, and tweet content predicted audience engagement with the site. Overall, local news organizations in the United States did not appear to use Twitter to cross-promote and/or supplement their traditional business practices. This research calls for more systematic, multi-dimensional social media management in local newsrooms.     

A Balance Between Imitation and Contrast: What Makes Newspapers Successful? A Summary of Internationally Comparative Research

What is it that helps printed newspapers successfully compete with other media for the audience: marketing efforts, content, or their design? This article discusses the results of the most recent studies of an extensive research program on this topic. It began with the evaluation of 350 local dailies in Germany in the mid-1990s. Papers were reexamined: 60 in 2001, 28 in 2002. Success factors revealed in the foundation study-such as clearly structuring the content, local orientation and a generous design-are still valid, but now have to be applied in a more refined manner. A replication with 50 U.S. newspapers provided material for both an analysis of newspaper success in the United States and for a German-American comparison. The recipes for newspaper success point to convergence between the two countries, but also to some cultural differences in what reading a newspaper means.     

我国报业竞争的发展趋势：从粗放经营到精耕细作

在当前激烈的报业竞争中,价格战、发行战、广告战、改扩版等手段是各报经常采用的竞争方式,而这些基本上都是围绕价格展开的低层次竞争。更高层次的竞争不是围绕价格而是基于各种资源的深度开发利用而进行的。这正是粗放式经营与集约式经营的区别所在。本文从内容设置、发行工作、广告经营和受众资源的开发等方面论述了我国报业如何实现竞争模式的这种转型。     

The Impact of Digital Technology on the Distribution Value Chain Model of Independent Feature Films in the UK

In response to the newspaper crisis, U.S. newspapers are seeking new business models for their online operation, but often ignore non-local readers who constitute a non-traditional niche audience with market potential. This study attempts to expand the understanding of the U.S. online newspaper readership in the dual-geographic market by empirically comparing local and long-distance users on demographic characteristics, online behavior, and satisfaction level with the newspaper site. Utilizing a dataset containing 28 newspaper Web sites' 25,964 visitors, this study performed a large-scale, in-depth analysis of online newspapers' long-distance readership unseen in previous research. Results show that more than one fourth of these newspaper sites' online users reside outside the print market. Most long-distance users have personal ties with the geographic area associated with the newspaper. Compared with local users, long-distance users tend to be male, older, better educated, and with a higher income. They are more likely to obtain local sports information from the site, but are less likely to visit the classifieds areas of the site. They also tend to be more loyal to and satisfied with the newspaper site. Newspapers should perceive long-distance users as a potential audience segment rather than an inconvenient truth when developing content, pricing, and marketing strategies.     

梁启超对近代美国报刊事业的认知

梁启超先生于1903年应邀出访美国,考察了美国报刊事业发展状况。美国报刊事业的发展规模以及先进的服务和营销理念,对梁先生思想启迪和终身致力于中国报刊事业等活动,产生了至深至远的影响。