Dow Jones CEO: 'Free costs too much'

Righting past mistakes

The media industry must completely reinvent itself to increase productivity, quality and profits, Hinton said. Charging for online news is a must and companies need to find more ways to improve their advertisement sales to survive.

When the Internet was in its infancy, "a lot of newspaper people were taken in by the game-changing gospel of the internet age. It was a new dawn, we were told. A new epoch, a new paradigm. And we just didn't get it. Like an over-eager middle-aged dad, desperate to look cool, we ended up dancing obediently to other people's tunes. For a while. You can almost hear the music - an algorithm and blues soundtrack - accompanying the harbingers of the new economy with the new rules of the new age. Their rules. These digital visionaries tell people like me that we just don't understand them. They talk about the wonders of the interconnected world, about the democratization of journalism. The news, they say, is viral now - that we should be grateful. Well, I think all of us need to beware of geeks bearing gifts," Hinton said. "Free costs too much. Good content is valuable. That hasn't changed. It never will."

Even though Google is at the heart of the crisis confronting journalism today it still has the ability to enhance and enrich our daily lives, and that shouldn't be forgotten, Hinton said. "They are in good company. Even Google is struggling make money with free content on the Web - its own content, that is."

Jansen agreed with Hinton, saying his biggest mistake was not charging for his online newspaper when it was first available online in 1995.

"A year later, I thought we really shouldn't be given this away for free," Jansen said. When asked why he didn't initially charge for his newspaper's online services he responded, "We just followed everybody else like a sheep in a herd and did not charge so now we have to make up for our mistakes."

He said deciding on whether or not to transition to a paid publication was especially difficult because SPH wanted to charge for content but didn't know how much, how or when to charge.

Jansen touched on the topic of Google competing with newspapers, asking "What's the difference between us and Google?" He said Google and other search engines are great to use; however, it limits the demand of newspapers by readers.

"The problem with search is it understanding our customers better than we do," he said. With the help of Google ads, which many news companies happily accept for a slice of the ad revenue, Google is able to get a better understanding of our consumers, Jansen said.

When an audience member asked in what ways publishers can battle Google, Wiele said that "Google is a wonderful helpful tool to find content...We all rely on Google and other search engines very heavily." He said search engines were fantastic and have every right to be present, but they also increase the need for publishers find other ways to improve advertisement revenues so that newspapers can cover every story. The media must completely reinvent themselves to increase productivity, quality and profits, he said.

"News is a business, and we should not be ashamed to say so. It's also a tougher business today than ever before," Hinton added.

Using all platforms to support each other

Wiele said that publications in Germany, for example, have maintained a steady readership over the past year due to the fact that people are sticking longer with what they know, which statistics claim to be newspapers.

"As leading publishing houses we have to make the first steps ourselves," Wiele said. "If we don't dare to go these first steps nobody else will."

In regards to Internet and mobile mediums, Wiele said newspapers that ignore digital technologies will lose print readers. Why?

Wiele gave the example of Axel Springer AG's Computer magazine, the largest computer magazine in Europe:

"The computer magazine's print circulation was declining, but we launched a Web site, circulation has been up between 2 and 6 percent per year. In 2009, the print computer magazine is selling more, and the online site is doing well. The computer magazine reader will look for info online, and we want him to find it on our site. If he doesn't, he will go to a competitor's site and will end up dropping his magazine subscription to switch to the competitor."

Using the online version to support print, and print to support the online version, is an important strategy that has been cause of great success for Axel Springer, he said.