U.S. publisher: Web publishing 'swapping pennies for dollars'
By Erina Lin, Monday 26 November 2007 at 23:23 :: Online/Digital Publishing :: #905 :: rss
New online business models for newspapers are substituting "pennies for dollars," the publisher of the New York Daily News told a UK House of Lords committee.
The House of Lords Select Committee on Communications interviewed Mort Zuckerman in September as part of their inquiry into media ownership. The minutes of the meeting were published Friday.
Zuckerman said that live television news and newspaper readership has dropped over the last two decades.
He added that the Daily News has always been profitable but this year it may not, due to the serious recession in advertising revenue and the impact from online competitors on advertising. Zuckerman said he is trying to develop new business models for the web, which is “substituting pennies for dollars.”
When talking about his main rival in New York, the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, he said it is a “non-economic competitor – sold cheaply which charges less for advertising,” according to Press Gazette.
Zuckerman said that he never gets involved in the news pages, but that he does get involved in editorials on areas of special interest to him. He believed that some owners get involved in news pages to further their own business interests. However, he sees it as “contrary to the tradition of American news values.”
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger told the committee that the Times defines itself by the word “news,” instead of the word “paper.”
He added that not only is his paper’s circulation in long-term decrease, but that in the past four to five years, advertising has also declined. This is the first time advertising revenue has declined while the economy has been growing.
Sulzberger said ad revenue on the Web may be worth less than on print but the cost of producing news online is also cheaper, Press Gazette reported.
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