BIG Changes With The Newspaper
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So I was watching the news tonight and woodTV is reporting that the newspapers all across the State are going to be making big changes in these economic hard times. Apparently they are also feeling the economic crunch from less advertising from local businesses and less subscribers for their paper in general. I think that many people knew this was going to happen sooner or later.
At least the Print News Press Media Companies were also smart enough to see this happening. Even though the Ann Arbor News will stop publishing completely in July and Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Grand rapids will combine resources like other Papers are doing now, Mlive will be there to pick up the pieces.
Publisher Dan Gaydou announced that Mlive is growing rapidly with opportunities on the web to continue to develop even as the Print Media is reduced in size. Now my 2 cents. If you look at Mlive.com, you will quickly find no reason to buy the newspaper anymore. A blog type website is used to deliver the news to residents of Michigan and anyone else worldwide without a subscription. Loaded with ads local business ads and the all to famous Google Ads, is how they decided to monetize their online efforts. As a web marketer myself, i think it would have been smarter to post the headlines for free and sell the full articles to subscribers. Perhaps less readers, but much more income.
The posting of full news online is an obvious reason for some of the loss of subscribers. It is also another reason for advertisers to spend less or none at all with the print version as they now have less viewers than before. Mlive is almost like a bullet to the head for all Print news that participates, or controlled by Mlive–however it works.
The bad economy gets so much blame for loss of business for businesses everywhere, but let’s face it, some of the Paper’s decisions to move their product online, is no doubt also to blame. Yes, the economy is bad and is indeed partly to blame, but so are the actions of the Newspaper Media themselves.
It is becoming more of a fact everyday, that digital media is taking more market share from print media of all types. The timing of some of the decisions that were made for Mlive.com is a little behind the times and I also feel that many of the Newspaper companies have put themselves at high risk waiting until now, because it would be easy for competition to develop and overshadow Mlive’s efforts for the right group of people. If Google gets anymore involved in local media, and chooses to target local news via volunteer bloggers or freelance writers, then Mlive will have a slim chance, all the while everyone loses their jobs from the Printing Press and newsrooms. Once again, Mlive should better monetize their site before someone else figures it all out.
We would like to hear what you think of the big change announced today for what’s in-store for the Newspaper Companies in Michigan. What do you think about it? Will it have any kind of impact on your life? Do you even care? Let us know by dropping a comment in the box below.
Thanks,
Jeramie
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March 30th, 2009 at 8:29 am
I see the Chronicle is referring to my two favourite scribes, Clayton Hardiman and Suzy Harrison as “retired staff writers”. Thank God they are still featured prominently in the Sunday paper. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get my weekly lectures about being a racist , sexist White man.