Just 35 people pay for access to Newsday.com
 

In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?

So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com?

The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.


http://www.observer.com/2010/media/a...sdays-web-site

I guess if people can get the news for free why pay for it?

thx for the link.

the article goes on to say that 75% of the population of li has free access to the site already, based on having a subscription to the paper or the local cable co.

i hope this has more to do with the lackluster signups than anything.

Yes but most people don't live on LI now do they? Are you usggesting people outside of LI have no interest in Newsday? Also as you state 25% do not have free access and stil don't subscribe. Myabe charging newspaper rates for an ONLINE product is a deterant?

i'm going strictly by what the article you posted stated. the rag was described as "the Long Island daily" which to me means local/regional and my comment was highlighting a point made by the author.

quite frankly, i don't have an answer to the dilemma.

Just because I haven't lived in the Tampa/Sarasota area in 17 years doesn't mean I don't check out what's going on in those areas via TBO.com and heraldtribune.com . I'm sure there are millions of former Long Islanders living in various parts of the country. Many of whom may be interested in such a subscription. Not at $5 a week though.

make it 1.99 and do it on volume :2 cents::winkwink:

ok, what's the pop of li? 5million? 8 million? newsday has <500k subscribers, they have a small enough local share, it's doubtful their reach across america makes a significant contribution to their readership. fact remains that it is a regional paper, not a national like chicago trib, washington post, etc.

Well YOU can make excuses for only 35 subscribers, but it is what it is.

My whole point of posting is that this should be a lesson and warning for THIS industry. In the age of FREE, Newsday is clearly over-pricing it's product. If the newspaper, magazine, music, tv, movie and yes even the porn industry wants to survive first they need to learn that the good old days are over and trying to sustain old business models is counter productive.

All these industries overprice their product because they want to make the profits of old. Sorry aint happening. They are going to have to learn to do with less. If they want to reduce piracy then they are going to have no chocie but to make sell their product CHEAPER. They make less per sale but they'll make more sales. They just are too scared or stupid to try it.

Sorry a Tv show isn't worth $2 an episode to download it from Amazon, Itunes, XBL or PSN. Especially when I am limited to how and where I can use it. And the "HD" verison certainly isn't worth $3 an episode. For a 1 hour show, 50 cents per episode for SD and $1 for HD. For a half hour show, 25 cents per episode for SD and 50 cents for HD. People already paying $50-$100 a month for cable to watch these shows.

They charge the same price for a digital download of movie as a DVD. Except the DVD often contains extras and a DVD I can take anywhere. I can take DVD I bought to a friend house to watch it. I can't even watch a movie I downloaded from XBL on my friend's XBOX 360. And I'm supposed to pay the SAME price? If you're going to gimp the content fine, then charge a price reflecting that. If a DVD is $20 then a gimped download shouldn't be more than $10 especially since you don't have any manufacturing costs or packaging or shipping and you cut out the middle man( ie Wal-Mart )

Most people feel 99 cents is too much for a song especially old ones. Now I realize that 30 years ago i was paying 99 cetns fora 45 single which is $3 in today money so 99 cents is actually a bargin, but most people don't feel that way. Hell half the people out there would be saying "What's a 45 single"? If they were reading this. I do feel however that a song from 1983 should NOT be priced the same as new. Now I'm not going to be like a lot of peole and just illegally download it, but I'm not buying it either. So appearantly NO money is better than SOME money to these guys.