1. I don't believe that audiences should pay for online news from the BBC to an extent. This is because the public already pay the TV licence and it would seem different/odd or might cause an upset if they have to pay an additional cost for content from the BBC. The BBC is an institution that is for the people so it would not be good for their reputation if they decided to charge for online content because the people will feel betrayed. They could possibly do it in the future once another institution decides to charge for online news but I don't believe they should be the first to try it. This is because paying for online content will be the norm in the future and both left and right wings would want to see the news on the BBC.
Was Rupert Murdoch right to put his news content (The Times, The Sunday Times) behind a paywall?
2. In March 2013 The Times had a large number of people subscribed to its website. There is an obvious increase in the amount of people subscribing from 2010 to 2013 where in the beginning there weren't any subscriptions. It only began in 2011 and gradually rose. This would suggest that Rupert Murdoch's decision was beneficial as more people were willing to pay a fee to access The Times news online. However, this wasn't the case and the main problem probably arouse from audiences were deciding to buy from competitors like any other news institution that provides free online news. For example MailOnline makes a small profit from advertising funding which would leas to £45 million a years. Whereas The Times lost £27.8 million for the year and the institute had to try to keep costs down and made people redundant.
Choose two comments from below the Times paywall article - one that argues in favour of the paywall and one that argues against. Copy a quote from each and explain which YOU agree with and why.
3.
In any business, success depends on delivering one of three things to customers: lowest cost, differential quality, or a niche unavailable elsewhere. Newsprint is no exception, but the lowest cost product in the marketplace is set at zero. The Times isn't niche, that's the like of aviation monthly, so it has to deliver a product of sufficient quality for readers to be willing to pay the premium. Is it doing this? I would say not really, more work is needed, and it's hard to see how the quality can improve with costs being cut.
I agree with this comment as The Times is no different to its competitors like I have mentioned and so audiences would opt to visiting MailOnline because it is free. This is something The Times does not provide and Rupert Murdoch has put the institution in a dilemma as they have given the MailOnline a competitive advantage. Furthermore, it is evident that audiences don't want to pay premium prices for a product where the quality hasn't been improved.
I disagree with this comment partially because I believe the fact that newspaper articles are now online for anyone to read, audiences would change for the newspaper themselves. This means that overall the print industry may begin to cater for different audiences making the print platform very similar to the e-media one. Therefore, most newspapers will have similar news articles and perhaps share them in a more fair perspective showing both parties views in a story. Also, this could be the reason why businesses wouldn't be overly worried about who promotes their good or services because viewing numbers would be pretty similar.
Why do you think the Evening Standard has bucked the trend and increased circulation and profit in the last two years?
4. The Evening Standard increased the number of copies they were distributing. The figures changed from 700,000 copies a day closer to 900,000 which could suggest the 27% increase in circulation. When compared to other regions, the change is far more significant and is the only one which has increased whereas Manchester Evening News or Birmingham Mail decreased in circulation. The increase in the number of copies would probably infer that newspapers have changed something to their newspapers incentivising them to buy them.
Is there any hope for the newspaper industry or will it eventually die out? Provide a detailed response to this question explaining and justifying your opinion.
5. I don't believe newspapers will completely die out because it could play a part of society. Newspaper will probably become a niche product in the future where only a segment of sophisticated people will be targeted by news institutions. This would improve the image of newspapers as people may want to buy one to be associated with the possible stereotypes of reading newspapers instead of online news.
No comments:
Post a Comment