Picard to publishers: get cozy with readers, users

Robert Picard speaking to class at University of Navarra. Robert G. Picard is one of the founding fathers of the academic discipline known as media economics. The field has attracted more attention lately as news outlets, ravaged by digital competitors, have gutted their reporting staffs and slashed public-service coverage. Policy makers, media executives, investors, and […]

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Publishers look beyond Facebook, Google for revenues

A deal with the devil. A new study by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) confirms what I have suspected for a long time: when publishers rely on Facebook for distribution, they are making a deal with the devil. “Reality Check: Making Money with Facebook” was based on a survey of an “expert […]

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Top reason globally for paying for news? Mobile access

Richard Fletcher of the Reuters Institute has produced an in-depth analysis of the top reasons people around the world gave for paying for news online. The Digital News Report 2017 included interviews of more than 70,000 adults in 36 countries. Fletcher observed that the most common reasons people gave for paying were they wanted access on […]

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When they trust media less, they’re willing to pay more

Alfonso Vara-Miguel A new study of internet users in Spain shows that those who trust “the media” less are more willing to pay for news online. The explanation for this counterintuitive behavior is that those distrustful folks “are willing to pay for those specific media that they trust”, according to the researchers, Alfonso Vara-Miguel of the  Universidad de […]

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Slovakia is latest to prove subscription model online

Home page of Dennik N Contrary to all the predictions about the public’s unwillingness to pay for news when it is freely available online, more publishers of high-quality, in-depth reporting are making money. The latest example comes from Slovakia, as recounted by Rob Sharp in Nieman Lab. The editors of a popular national newspaper there […]

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