Paywall, paywall, paywall for online newspapers!!!

No, I don’t normally use triple exclamation points.

But, in this breakout and expansion of part of an initial post on why newspapers, including the “old” hardcopy versions thereof, aren’t dead yet, it’s needed.

Let’s look at the paywall issues.

First, most newspapers still don’t have paywalls, though more are talking about them again. And, those that are going beyond talk are often pricing them high, to which I say GOOD! Casual readers can go away. Real ones will pay for online-only, or else will buy a hardcopy subscription with a free online one with that.

Many newspaper executives, in addition to being incompetent on other issues, have never really “gotten” this one. CEOs are clueless, still, about how the Net likely never will be monetized for newspapers on an ads-only basis. In hardcopy, for pay newspapers, circulation traditionally paid one-quarter the freight. Why, instead of a TV model, didn’t newspapers take their own financial model to the Net in the start?

I have no idea, but, they didn’t.

Second, as far as what newspapers are doing “wrong” in the online world, it’s possible that, at all but the biggest dailies, a lot of ad salespeople still don’t know how to sell online ads. It’s wholly different. At the minimum, instead of taking a couple of pages of spec sheets, if you want to show something to a customer, you have to take a laptop computer. And, you have to be “Internet intuitive” in some way.

Third, the cost savings of online vs. hardcopy versions? Yes, you don’t have to pay for copy editors, although you do need web design editors as well as content ones, and many papers have hired people who don’t know a lot about how to do that. And, I’m not talking small dailies; I mean big ones.

And, because the Internet is NOT a good vehicle for newspaper-type display ads, in smaller markets, if the daily goes online only, a shopper WILL spring up. So, if you make ANY additional profit by running a hardcopy version, even with paying paper, pressmen, copy editors and route drivers, it’s worth doing it.

Fourth, is it too late today to install a paywall? No. First, see the AJR column I linked. Second, if Dean Singleton had more brains, he would implement mandatory paywalls for AP content as part of new AP content package contracts.

He would then, instead of haggling with Google about a few dinky ads, would quadruple or quintuple the rates AP charges it, and have an exclusivity sidebar in there which would force Google to treat AFP and Reuters the same to avoid the freeloader problem.

The price would be set so high that, even after negotiated downward, Google couldn’t afford to cover it with ads alone, unless it wanted to do so as a major loss leader. In other words, if Dean-o had brains, he would force Google, Yahoo and MSN to paywall also.

But, while he may have built MediaNews into an empire, I’ve never accused Dean Singleton of having brains while running the AP.

As for online-only newspapers, if they don’t paywall, they have to depend on donations from individuals, non-profit foundations, or both. The latter puts you at the whim of non-profit interests, or potentially so. The former has worked for a couple of blogs that have expanded into reporting, like Talking Points Memo, but only (so far) for narrow, focused political news. Ditto for online papers.

Will people donate for bonus local sports coverage? Hell, no, is my intuitive answer. Ditto for feature stories. Will they donate for something as mundane as community calendar listings?

So, online-only newspapers, without paywalls, will likely simply balkanize the situation further.