Newspapers' Revenue Plan: If Lots Of People Used To Give Us A Little, We'll Now Get A Few People To Give Us A Lot!
from the nice-try dept
Mark writes in with a story about how some newspapers are apparently jacking up the prices they charge for death notices (via The Consumerist). The original author balked at paying the SF Chronicle $450 for a 182-word death notice, calling it an exploitation of people who, when dealing with a death, will simply swallow it and pay up. That might be a little extreme, but clearly death notices are an area where papers can try to make up revenues they've lost in their classifieds and other areas. The key word here is "try" -- by jacking up the cost of death notices, the plan seems to be to replace lots of people paying newspapers a little bit of money with a few people paying them a lot. Which makes perfect sense, right? The problem is that papers are assuming that death notices are something people will keep paying for blindly, when, like so many other parts of their business, they appear to be living on borrowed time. Just like classifieds shifted to the internet, so too are things like death notices, with social networks like Facebook becoming a more popular way for members of younger generations to learn about deaths in their social circles. Charging high fees for death notices seems like an easy way for newspapers to hasten their irrelevance and demise, not a way to grow their revenues.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: newspapers, obituaries
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will they publish their own death notice?
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Re:
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Also, Carlo, not trying to TAM here (note: I am not calling you "the masnick") but 230 words? Seriously? I'm sure you could have gone into a little more depth here.
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This is not about cwf+rtb. This is not about giving away obituaries. This is about raising the price without giving extra reason to pay. Don't be a TAM.
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Yay! You read the article. Now come up with an argument why the article's warning (that this is a stupid idea because newspaper death notices are pretty much superfluous anymore) is in some way inaccurate. You can do it! Or can you see that no business model, no matter how "masnick", will work well when employed with a misguided premise.
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Plus the fact that they are only raising the price to counteract the drop in subscriptions, not to offer anything new or free.
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How long...
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Re: How long...
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Re: How long...
Registrant:
Joseph Hunkins
{REDACTED}
Talent, Oregon 97540
United States
Domain Name: GOOGLEDEATH.COM
Created on: 13-Jul-08
Expires on: 13-Jul-11
Last Updated on: 19-Apr-10
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Comparable value
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What else is new? Everything the newspapers, record labels, and tv studios do goes against basic economic theory and is self defeating. I dont have much hope that they will survive the next 10-15 years.
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How much are the notices worth?
I wonder if the business plans that say paywalls are a good idea take into account lost revenue from sources like death notices and advertising.
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If nothing else qualifies as evidence depicting the ruthless nature of those who hold these draconian business models, this certainly does.
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Give the people what they want at a price they are WILLING TO PAY
What these morons dont understand is that as the price goes up so does the demand for ingenuity to find a better or cheaper way. They dont (want to) care about the markets any more. Only the bottom line. Maximise profits by price gouging with acceptable loss levels built into the new higher price. My first thought was a new category for a certain list that is searchable by city or area. The only problem with this is lack of over-site. Stupid people will do stupid things. Or a certain search site that offers rs news feeds by area. Ingenuity always wins out over greed. Just look at how its working for the music industry.
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My father (who reads the newspaper every day) insisted, so we did it. I don't know of anyone who would have heard of her death that way that didn't already know, so it all seemed rather pointless to me.
I can assure you that we probably won't be paying that fee in the future, as newspapers become even more irrelevant (and raising the prices to ridiculous levels on top of it).
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no common readership
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*Very* Annoying.
So I call the paper and make arrangements to post the blurb and come to find it will cost me $140. Now, that's not a lot of money, except that I *couldn't* shop around for a better price. The paper could have charged me $1,400. If I wanted to go through with the process, I had to put the blurb in the paper.
As soon as I was told I had to use a newspaper, I immediately wondered what would happen when there is no newspaper. It was the first time I've ever given money to a newspaper, and hopefully it will be the last.
..and the crazy thing: The paper had dozens of similar legal blurbs in it.. I imagine it's how they stay out of the red.
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Re: *Very* Annoying.
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Also annoying.
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I don't even think that she had a newspaper obituary. So it really doesn't matter what they're charging. They're obsolete even if free.
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Death Notices
And, the guy who paid $450 for a death notice; what's he bitchin's about? The price for those has been over the top for decades. SF Chronicle charged me almost $400 (about a buck a word) for my dad's death notice in 1981.
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Re: Death Notices
Honestly, I don't see what the point of a death notice is to the dead person, or their relatives. If you know me well enough to care that I'm dead, you probably already know that I'm dead. If not, then why should I spend one red cent to tell you?
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