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There would have been some tension in the halls of newspaper publisher Fairfax's Sydney headquarters this week following the Age's quietly devastating critique of sister publication the Australian Financial Review for its policy of charging for online content.
Anyone who has used the AFR's website, either to browse
for stories or try to pay to view one, would know that the website is broken at a fundamental level.
As Matthew Ricketson points out in his Age piece: "AFR.com has negligible experience in the finance information and analysis business.
"So it seems odd for an organisation to trade its four decades-plus experience in the finance news business for a bucketful of headaches."
As the Age points out, so too is the online subscription business model, as Rupert Murdoch considers ditching premium content on the website of his latest acquisition, the Wall Street Journal.
Internationally, the Wall Street Journal is the only major newspaper that has made a success of charging for online content with more than 900,000 well-heeled execs paying US$50 ($66) a year for access.
But that's chump change for Murdoch compared with what the Wall Street Journal could be spinning online were it to adopt the advertising-based online business model Murdoch has warmed to with his many dotcom acquisitions.
Britain's Financial Times newspaper will scale back its subscription model from next month for FT.com, allowing readers to access 30 articles a month before they start paying.
Fairfax has refrained from charging online for content from the Independent Financial Review, its local business publication, and no newspaper here has an online subscription model since APN News and Media ditched its unpopular pay wall for the Herald website.
The Independent's content is bundled into the Stuff website and the country's other financial newspaper, the National Business Review, has a regularly updated - but underdeveloped - website.
Willing spectators
If AFR.com didn't have enough problems on its hands with bug-prone software and a questionable business model, it will get another competitor in the form of the Business Spectator, a free financial news website being launched this month by a group of Australian journalists and businessmen.
It will be free to access, be updated 24 hours a day by reporters and columnists, and apparently use Myspace-like social networking tools in an attempt to develop a community of high-value readers to attract advertisers.
There's no word yet as to whether there'll be much coverage of New Zealand business news by the Business Spectator, but if the 24-hour news model sticks it could be up before our dawn competing with the Dominion Post's Business Day and the Business Herald for breakfast-time internet traffic.
Defining high costs
Both TVNZ and TV3 will be broadcasting a good deal of prime-time American TV drama in high definition on the freeview platform by the middle of next year.
But what about New Zealand programming in high definition?
TVNZ chief Rick Ellis says local producers will move to HD production "over time", but there's no firm plan beyond the release of international HD content that can now be bought for the same price as the same thing in standard definition.
Some local producers, particularly those who want to get their shows on the Discovery Channel and other United States networks, are already set up for high-definition shooting and post-production. But most of the industry, which is focused on production for local TV broadcast, hasn't yet made the change.
In the early phase then, high-definition TV for both consumers and TV production companies is going to be most notable for the set-up costs.
It's that type of cost impact that contributed to Deutsche Bank slashing the rating of Australia's Ten Network to "sell" last month.
Ten plans to launch a digital channel in December, but Deutsche Bank said the network would face higher staff and programming costs in the move to HD, which Channel 9 and Seven are also moving to in the same timeframe.
Giving up on readers
The internet is certainly making a dent in newspaper circulation numbers but there's a growing willingness among publishing companies to leave out potential subscribers they'd traditionally have been advertising to, offering discounts and cold-calling to get them to sign annual subscriptions.
Some paying readers, it seems, aren't worth having. The cost of getting a newspaper subscriber has doubled in the US in the past four years to reach US$68.
On average, US papers have lost 10 per cent of their readers since 2000 - a trend mirrored by Australasian newspapers. Some US papers - including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times - have cut back on advertising substantially and accepted the eroding circulation trend as unavoidable and therefore not worth fighting.
Take the Dallas Morning News, which last year dropped all newspaper distribution outside a 320km radius. Weekday circulation fell 15 per cent to 400,000. This year it reduced the radius to 160km and expects to take another sizeable hit in the circulation figures.
Publisher Jim Moroney is philosophical about his empire, which simply cost too much to run when he was trying to reach every nook and cranny of Texas. "I have no regrets," he said. "People who really want to read the Dallas Morning News can still get it online."
A fair sacrifice
Former All Black and Fairfax chief executive David Kirk, at present at the Rugby World Cup in France catching up with former rugby mates, says there will not be any more major acquisitions by the publishing company as it focuses on "earnings per share accretion".
That will suit Kirk, who took a slight pay cut in the last year but still brings in close to A$3 million ($3.5 million) a year. He also salary-sacrificed A$1.2 million in benefits in the last financial year to contribute to a scheme to buy Fairfax shares. His Fairfax shareholding is now more than A$1.9 million.
In New Zealand, Fairfax has promoted Press editor Paul Thompson to group executive editor, in effect giving him oversight of Fairfax's New Zealand editorial operations.
* John Drinnan's Media column returns on November 9.
