Web accessibility and smaller market newspapers
(NOTE 11/26/06: The day before this article published and without fanfare, the Rochester Post-Bulletin opened its website to all users without charge. We did not become aware of this until today. Thanks to Bluestem Prairie for alerting us to this positive change for southern Minnesota.)
Open vs. closed website: Which model will prevail?
by Leigh Pomeroy
Southern Minnesota, long considered a political backwater in the land of 10,000 lakes, received its fair share of media attention this year, thanks to Tim Walz's amazing run for the U.S. House of Representatives.
But what brought this race to national attention was not just the contest itself but the availability of information about it. In this day of info by internet, news often comes via broadband and computer rather than by TV and newspaper.
TV stations have long had a guaranteed stream of income due to licensing limits. Political seasons are a particular goldmine for them due to the abundance of cash thrown in their direction not only by candidates but also political parties and special interest groups. During the campaign season a TV broadcaster's problem is not how to increase revenue but rather how to apportion the advertising minutes it has available. According to Liz Dahlen, Station Manager for KTTC in Rochester, Minnesota, many requests for advertising time at her station had to be turned down.
Newspapers, however, are another matter, and the internet era has been particularly challenging for them. First of all, readership — and therefore subscriptions — has been on the decline. And as readership declines, so does the demand for ad space, fueling a vicious cycle.
Not that newspapers aren't profitable; by and large they are. But pressures upon the bottom line are constant, and one of the most significant is competition from "free" news available on the internet.
First of all, it's immediate — no waiting for the next printing and delivery. Secondly, it cuts out the costs of physical publication — printing and distribution. With the internet, there is no printing, and distribution costs no more than a server and a broadband connection. Thus, the primary cost of news distributed via the internet is in compensating reporters, writers, editors and webmasters.
It has been a huge struggle for the print news media to figure out how to pay for news dissemination via the internet without cutting into their bread-and-butter subscription and advertising bases.
Most major newspapers have embraced a policy of placing their major or "hard" news stories on the internet via their websites without charge, at least for a limited period of time. They are offsetting this cost by banking on internet advertising, which, up to this point, has been an inconsistent revenue stream at best. They have determined, however, that in order to maintain their credibility and print market share, a significant internet presence is a realistic necessity.
Smaller market newspapers have to deal with a different reality. For one thing, maintaining an internet presence can be relatively more costly. While the price for server space is declining rapidly, the cost of good technical expertise remains high. Maintaining a website, whether it be for a 10,000 or 1,000,000 daily circulation paper, can be significant, but the efficiencies of scale work much better for the latter.
In southern Minnesota, a good example of two opposing models can be observed by looking at the availability of information covering the recent campaign period. The two major newspapers in the area are the Rochester Post-Bulletin and the Mankato Free Press. The former has a larger circulation potential due to a target market of about 150,000. The potential market area of the latter is about half that size.
Yet in terms of internet presence, at least in terms of the 1st Congressional District race between the incumbent, Gil Gutknecht, and the challenger, Tim Walz, the Free Press played a more significant role. Why?
The reason is simple. Just prior to the campaign season the Free Press decided to post most, if not all, of its politics related articles online and available to anyone for free. The Post-Bulletin, on the other hand, maintained a "closed" internet site, posting only a handful of its articles online for free access. The majority of its articles were available to Post-Bulletin print subscribers only and to others for $99 per year. And after about 72 hours of free access even the "free" articles were put behind the subscriber-only firewall.
The result is that if anyone wanted to find out about the 1st Congressional District race in southern Minnesota via the internet from a newspaper source, they could not rely upon the largest circulation newspaper in the district. Instead, they had to access the websites of the Mankato Free Press or the Winona Daily News, which has a target market of about 50,000, or one-third that of the Post-Bulletin.
One way to determine information availability is to look at Google rankings. While the Google ranking algorithm is like the formula for Coca Cola — a closely held secret — it is largely based on links to and popularity of a given webpage. Thus, a higher ranking in Google means that a webpage is for all intents and purposes more popular than those listed after it.
Let us assume the terms "tim walz" and "gil gutknecht" appeared during the campaign season equally in the print editions of both the Rochester Post-Bulletin and the Mankato Free Press. This is a fair assumption since many campaign activities were held in both cities, and Rochester in the home of Mr. Gutknecht and Mankato the home of Mr. Walz.
The search term <"gil gutknecht" "tim walz"> on Google results in approximately 55,000 listings. While the results will vary depending upon when the search engine is accessed, a listing of a Mankato Free Press article usually comes up within the first 20 results, and a Winona Daily News article within the first 50. The Post-Bulletin doesn't come up in the index until somewhere between 80 and 90, and that's a link to the newspaper's blog.
Searching the same terms in Google News yields references to both the Mankato Free Press and the Winona Daily News within the top 10 results. The Rochester Post-Bulletin doesn't even show up within the first 100 listings, although much smaller circulation newspapers like the Austin Daily Herald, Spring Valley Tribune and Agri News, which is owned by the Post-Bulletin, all are indexed within the top 50. As might be expected, the much larger circulation Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press show up frequently in the top 50, along with Minnesota Public Radio and several Twin Cities and Rochester market TV stations.
Searching Google News for <gutknecht walz> yields a similar result, with Free Press articles indexed within the first 10 results and no reference to the Post-Bulletin at all within the first 100. Using other Google News search parameters (11/24/06) further indicates the advantages of newspapers maintaining an "open" website:
As the importance of the internet continues to grow, a stronger business model based on online ad revenue will develop with it. Newspapers that find their niche among an audience beyond their historical circulation area should thrive. Those that maintain the older, "closed" model based solely on printing and physical distribution could very well be left behind in this age of globalized information.
Open vs. closed website: Which model will prevail?
by Leigh Pomeroy
Southern Minnesota, long considered a political backwater in the land of 10,000 lakes, received its fair share of media attention this year, thanks to Tim Walz's amazing run for the U.S. House of Representatives.
But what brought this race to national attention was not just the contest itself but the availability of information about it. In this day of info by internet, news often comes via broadband and computer rather than by TV and newspaper.
TV stations have long had a guaranteed stream of income due to licensing limits. Political seasons are a particular goldmine for them due to the abundance of cash thrown in their direction not only by candidates but also political parties and special interest groups. During the campaign season a TV broadcaster's problem is not how to increase revenue but rather how to apportion the advertising minutes it has available. According to Liz Dahlen, Station Manager for KTTC in Rochester, Minnesota, many requests for advertising time at her station had to be turned down.
Newspapers, however, are another matter, and the internet era has been particularly challenging for them. First of all, readership — and therefore subscriptions — has been on the decline. And as readership declines, so does the demand for ad space, fueling a vicious cycle.
Not that newspapers aren't profitable; by and large they are. But pressures upon the bottom line are constant, and one of the most significant is competition from "free" news available on the internet.
First of all, it's immediate — no waiting for the next printing and delivery. Secondly, it cuts out the costs of physical publication — printing and distribution. With the internet, there is no printing, and distribution costs no more than a server and a broadband connection. Thus, the primary cost of news distributed via the internet is in compensating reporters, writers, editors and webmasters.
It has been a huge struggle for the print news media to figure out how to pay for news dissemination via the internet without cutting into their bread-and-butter subscription and advertising bases.
Most major newspapers have embraced a policy of placing their major or "hard" news stories on the internet via their websites without charge, at least for a limited period of time. They are offsetting this cost by banking on internet advertising, which, up to this point, has been an inconsistent revenue stream at best. They have determined, however, that in order to maintain their credibility and print market share, a significant internet presence is a realistic necessity.
Smaller market newspapers have to deal with a different reality. For one thing, maintaining an internet presence can be relatively more costly. While the price for server space is declining rapidly, the cost of good technical expertise remains high. Maintaining a website, whether it be for a 10,000 or 1,000,000 daily circulation paper, can be significant, but the efficiencies of scale work much better for the latter.
In southern Minnesota, a good example of two opposing models can be observed by looking at the availability of information covering the recent campaign period. The two major newspapers in the area are the Rochester Post-Bulletin and the Mankato Free Press. The former has a larger circulation potential due to a target market of about 150,000. The potential market area of the latter is about half that size.
Yet in terms of internet presence, at least in terms of the 1st Congressional District race between the incumbent, Gil Gutknecht, and the challenger, Tim Walz, the Free Press played a more significant role. Why?
The reason is simple. Just prior to the campaign season the Free Press decided to post most, if not all, of its politics related articles online and available to anyone for free. The Post-Bulletin, on the other hand, maintained a "closed" internet site, posting only a handful of its articles online for free access. The majority of its articles were available to Post-Bulletin print subscribers only and to others for $99 per year. And after about 72 hours of free access even the "free" articles were put behind the subscriber-only firewall.
The result is that if anyone wanted to find out about the 1st Congressional District race in southern Minnesota via the internet from a newspaper source, they could not rely upon the largest circulation newspaper in the district. Instead, they had to access the websites of the Mankato Free Press or the Winona Daily News, which has a target market of about 50,000, or one-third that of the Post-Bulletin.
One way to determine information availability is to look at Google rankings. While the Google ranking algorithm is like the formula for Coca Cola — a closely held secret — it is largely based on links to and popularity of a given webpage. Thus, a higher ranking in Google means that a webpage is for all intents and purposes more popular than those listed after it.
Let us assume the terms "tim walz" and "gil gutknecht" appeared during the campaign season equally in the print editions of both the Rochester Post-Bulletin and the Mankato Free Press. This is a fair assumption since many campaign activities were held in both cities, and Rochester in the home of Mr. Gutknecht and Mankato the home of Mr. Walz.
The search term <"gil gutknecht" "tim walz"> on Google results in approximately 55,000 listings. While the results will vary depending upon when the search engine is accessed, a listing of a Mankato Free Press article usually comes up within the first 20 results, and a Winona Daily News article within the first 50. The Post-Bulletin doesn't come up in the index until somewhere between 80 and 90, and that's a link to the newspaper's blog.
Searching the same terms in Google News yields references to both the Mankato Free Press and the Winona Daily News within the top 10 results. The Rochester Post-Bulletin doesn't even show up within the first 100 listings, although much smaller circulation newspapers like the Austin Daily Herald, Spring Valley Tribune and Agri News, which is owned by the Post-Bulletin, all are indexed within the top 50. As might be expected, the much larger circulation Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press show up frequently in the top 50, along with Minnesota Public Radio and several Twin Cities and Rochester market TV stations.
Searching Google News for <gutknecht walz> yields a similar result, with Free Press articles indexed within the first 10 results and no reference to the Post-Bulletin at all within the first 100. Using other Google News search parameters (11/24/06) further indicates the advantages of newspapers maintaining an "open" website:
- Searching <"gil gutknecht" rochester "post-bulletin"> yields 1 result, and that's to a story in the Winona Daily News
- Searching <"tim walz" rochester "post-bulletin"> yields the same result
- Searching <"gil gutknecht" mankato "free press"> yields 24 results
- Searching <"tim walz" mankato "free press"> yields 29 results
As the importance of the internet continues to grow, a stronger business model based on online ad revenue will develop with it. Newspapers that find their niche among an audience beyond their historical circulation area should thrive. Those that maintain the older, "closed" model based solely on printing and physical distribution could very well be left behind in this age of globalized information.
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3 Comments:
Actually, many people turned to Bluestem Prairie to read those stories as a one-stop place for news aggregation and framing.
It's not so hard to read the Post Bulletin online if you know where to look.
Try thinking about the web as a web, rather than sticking to the old model of page rankings etc for individual sites, and you'll get it.
Ollie Ox
Absolutely. And I was going to mention Bluestem Prairie except that veering from newspapers to blogs, plus doing more with TV and radio, would have made too long and complex an article.
Perhaps comparing newspaper presences on the Web with other forms of media — blogs, local and national TV, local and national radio, magazines, etc. — will come with a future article.
As for "It's not so hard to read the Post Bulletin online if you know where to look," the kicker, of course, is "if you know where to look."
Not everyone is that web-savvy, nor do they have the time and inclination to search. It is fortunate, however, that Bluestem Prairie posts on its website many Post-Bulletin articles that have long since disappeared behind the newspaper's subscription only firewall.
Actually, the Post Bulletin consigned its subscription firewall to the dustbin of history a day or two before you posted this.
I'd noticed the free access in the wee morning hours of Thanksgiving Day, but waited to get confirmation from a staffer that it was gone for good.
The reason that the paper doesn't show up in Google News is probably because of an absence of "feed" coding, but I've suggested to the staffer that it should be added.
Other, accessible papers, such as the New Ulm Journal, don't show up in the feed, either.
While google alerts, etc, are useful, I have to confess to actually browsing the papers. Helpful to get the full picture.
Ollie Ox
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