Bezos buys Washington Post. Really.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by manfred63

The problem is that most people already pay some digital subscriptions. Music 10 bucks, movies 10 bucks, and then a single newspaper wants 10 bucks per month. That's a bit much just for digital content. And you pay for the internet you're using right now, too.

As an Internet Service Provider I'd buy such subscriptions and offer them free to my customers. Maybe we'll see WP content free for Kindle users sooner or later, and other people would pay 10 bucks per month. I don't think that paywalls work for newspapers. It doesn't work if you get 24/7 TV entertainment for almost the same price.

When I was a kid, I delivered the morning paper for 50 cents a week. (7 days)
Rain, snow or shine, those papers were delivered with uncanny accuracy to a designated place on a porch or second story balcony. I hated the few who wanted it inside the screen door which slowed me down.

My ability to loft a large "special" Sunday paper up on the balcony over the flower pots was especially impressive. (I never used a rubber band, or any of these newfangled plastic sleeves in current vogue.)

These days I get no newspaper, and only on occasion a specially cheap magazine subscription. ($5 or 10 for a year)

Times change.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by wizwor

Politicians promise a lot, Bezos DELIVERS a lot.

well, well, well... the guy that helped popularize ebooks is now offering a hand to failing traditional media...

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Warren Buffet already owns The Washington Post. He's their largest shareholder and recently stepped down from its Board.

I did miss that. Of course, you are talking about the Washington Post Company, and it's been a while since that was mostly a newspaper company. Also, it seems that Buffett bought most of his 18.4% stake before Berners-Lee invented the web.

[SeaKing]

I read that Post stockholders got a "small windfall" from the sale.

I take it, that Bezos paid more than the stock was worth.

[ghero]

Besides the traditional digital subscription model, what about this kind of model (which just pop out of my head):

Give Washington Post (permanent) free digital subscription to all kindle users, however the catch to this deal is that it will come with tones of ADs embedded in the digital news paper. The user can hide those ADs or get an AD free version of it by paying a subscription fee. Also to encourage user to pay, there should be some extra contents/benefits that are exclusively to the payer.

I think this kind of model can make sense b/c:

1. It will help to sell more kindles, and makes kindles more competitive, since kindle buyers can now get high quality news papers for free now.

2. WaPo will get a huge boost in its AD revenue, as well as more international influence, since kindle will make WaPo a world wide popular news paper, and free subscription means each kindle will come with this.

3. As many pointed out, some people may still don't want to pay for the news, so this model might cover that concern.

4. The more ADs you embeded, the more AD revenue you gain, and more people will be willing to pay for an AD free version. However, there might be a limit that there is too much ADs that it begins to piss off the readers to drive them away.

I think in the long run, the success of WaPo in partner with kindle also requires an excellent localization strategy:

1. To be able to deliver local news (provincial/city/community news), on top of the international/national news.

2. To be able to deliver the news globally, and offers in different languages for diffferent language-speaking countries.

3. Get into the human resources market. Collect and post job oppertunities in readers' local region. This information is something you can charge them to pay. You can make this kind of information only avaliable to subscription payers.

4. Able to deliver regional specific ADs.

OK, thats all I can think for now.

[manfred63]

These are great ideas, Ghero. If a user likes WP content, he will want to enjoy the content withoud ads sooner or later. But no ads is not enough in my opinion, no big data at all should be the option. If I pay, I want my privacy. And I would like to hide user generated content (like comments) totally as a paying customer. I think this stuff is even worse than ads.

WP can give some videos or blog articles by popular journalists (Making-Of-articles about the background investigation for example) to the subscribers as a bonus. I'm quite sure some customers would get a second Kindle Fire just as a WP Reader. Or Amazon could make a special WP edition of the Kindle Fire, shouldn't be a big problem to print the WP logo on such a deveice.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by manfred63

And I would like to hide user generated content (like comments) totally as a paying customer. I think this stuff is even worse than ads.

Agreed.

This brings up a plus for the Kindle eInk browsers (as well as for Calibre news). Those comments are rarely included in text-only web sites.

I suppose WaPo will be putting the content in my next link behind a paywall soon (maybe there is already an article limit), but, for now, to see what I mean:

http://www.readingthenet.com/mob?ct=...p=30&u=twp.com

Originally Posted by ghero

Give Washington Post (permanent) free digital subscription to all kindle users, however the catch to this deal is that it will come with tones of ADs embedded in the digital news paper.

I would really like this, and doubt that they would be able to sell enough tons of eInk ads to bother me. Of course, it depends on how much the eReader price goes up to pay for the new content.

And talking of price, how much would Amazon have to pay Bezos for this? I can't believe he would give it away, even to the company he founded. Indeed, it would be irresponsible for him to permanently give away WaPo's intellectual property, since he won't own that paper forever.

Here's my modest proposal for Bezos, should he adopt the wonderful Carnegie/Gates model of gradually giving away his fortune. Take the WaPo non-profit, giving it a quarter of your fortune as a starting endowment. This should be enough to guarantee continued existence of at least one outstanding news organization.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by manfred63

The problem is that most people already pay some digital subscriptions. Music 10 bucks, movies 10 bucks, and then a single newspaper wants 10 bucks per month. That's a bit much just for digital content. And you pay for the internet you're using right now, too.

Hmm, my local paper wants $20/month ($21 if I want both print and digital).

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Agreed.

This brings up a plus for the Kindle eInk browsers (as well as for Calibre news). Those comments are rarely included in text-only web sites.

I suppose WaPo will be putting the content in my next link behind a paywall soon (maybe there is already an article limit), but, for now, to see what I mean:

http://www.readingthenet.com/mob?ct=...p=30&u=twp.com



I would really like this, and doubt that they would be able to sell enough tons of eInk ads to bother me. Of course, it depends on how much the eReader price goes up to pay for the new content.

And talking of price, how much would Amazon have to pay Bezos for this? I can't believe he would give it away, even to the company he founded. Indeed, it would be irresponsible for him to permanently give away WaPo's intellectual property, since he won't own that paper forever.

Here's my modest proposal for Bezos, should he adopt the wonderful Carnegie/Gates model of gradually giving away his fortune. Take the WaPo non-profit, giving it a quarter of your fortune as a starting endowment. This should be enough to guarantee continued existence of at least one outstanding news organization.

Your point being that an outstanding news organization cannot be profitable? I am sure Bezos has other ideas. And I hope he is showing the world how it is done so that others can follow and avoid the inevitable downfall.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Hmm, my local paper wants $20/month ($21 if I want both print and digital).

I use pressdisplay/newspaperdirect for $9.99 a month and usually read the IHT. On Sundays I then pick one of the other papers on offer. I consider it to be a good deal.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

And talking of price, how much would Amazon have to pay Bezos for this?

.

A lot less than most people would guess, going by the per-unit costs of (full function) software bundled with PCs. (Full copies of Word Perfect Office were licensed for $5-7 to system builders.)

I could see Amazon bundling a year of WP for new Kindles for maybe $50M. Which might be as low as $2 per device.

Three reasons this would be fair is:

1- WP gets the ad revenue from the Kindle edition.
2- Some users would choose to upgrade to ad-less and stay subscribed after the year is over. Others would pay a lower rate to renew the ad-bearing subscription.
3- Kindle would be taking the WP to people who otherwise would not have thought of subscribing and many of those will end up increasing the subscriber base.

How good a deal it might be for both sides would depend on the ad rates the WP might command for the Kindle edition and the conversion rate to paid subscriptions. They might chose to do a shorter free period for a lower payment but if they do such a deal it needs to be at least 3 months to get users properly hooked.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Your point being that an outstanding news organization cannot be profitable?

You mean, once the transition to digital completes? In the US, that's an open question. My guess is that an outstanding news organization, in the sense of the watergate era WaPo, cannot be profitable unless all the world's serious news web sites put up a strong pay wall. That won't happen. So papers will continue to hemorrhage print readers and ad revenue, with digital not making it up.

The New York Times, IMHO the outstanding US news organization, did make money in 2012, but only after repeated rounds of layoffs. And print circulation continues to slide. And digital circulation is nowhere near as valuable as print circulation was. For example, I now pay US.1.99 a month for the ad-free Kindle New York Times Latest News Blog. Before the web, I was a home delivery subscriber paying maybe ten or fifteen times more, not even taking inflation into account -- even though the paper was mostly financed by ads. Someone could say that they should raise the price of that blog, which is indeed a bargain. But with so many free alternatives such as Calibre news, if the Times does raise the price much, I'll walk.

As for the Washington Post, their layoffs, while insufficient to restore profitability, mean the WaPo is not the outstanding paper it once was. They dropped their book review section in, I believe, 2009 and investigative journalism has been greatly cut.

I am sure Bezos has other ideas.

As do hundreds of thousands of others. But what does Bezos know about the news business? And what evidence is there that he wants to spend much time on it? Even if there are a few magic ideas which would restore the paper's greatness while returning profitability, which I doubt, you don't do a successful corporate turnaround working an hour or two a week.

If I believe the Wall Street Journal, your entire island has been thrown into turmoil. Maybe the Wall Street Journal will remain profitable. And maybe the Wall Street Journal article I linked is a good one despite the possible hyperbole. But if the Wall Street Journal is the best that's possible in the digital age, I do consider that unfortunate.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

You mean, once the transition to digital completes? In the US, that's an open question. My guess is that an outstanding news organization, in the sense of the watergate era WaPo, cannot be profitable unless all the world's serious news web sites put up a strong pay wall. That won't happen. So papers will continue to hemorrhage print readers and ad revenue, with digital not making it up.

The New York Times, IMHO the outstanding US news organization, did make money in 2012, but only after repeated rounds of layoffs. And print circulation continues to slide. And digital circulation is nowhere near as valuable as print circulation was. For example, I now pay US.1.99 a month for the ad-free Kindle New York Times Latest News Blog. Before the web, I was a home delivery subscriber paying maybe ten or fifteen times more, not even taking inflation into account -- even though the paper was mostly financed by ads. Someone could say that they should raise the price of that blog, which is indeed a bargain. But with so many free alternatives such as Calibre news, if the Times does raise the price much, I'll walk.

As for the Washington Post, their layoffs, while insufficient to restore profitability, mean the WaPo is not the outstanding paper it once was. They dropped their book review section in, I believe, 2009 and investigative journalism has been greatly cut.


As do hundreds of thousands of others. But what does Bezos know about the news business? And what evidence is there that he wants to spend much time on it? Even if there are a few magic ideas which would restore the paper's greatness while returning profitability, which I doubt, you don't do a successful corporate turnaround working an hour or two a week.

If I believe the Wall Street Journal, your entire island has been thrown into turmoil. Maybe the Wall Street Journal will remain profitable. And maybe the Wall Street Journal article I linked is a good one despite the possible hyperbole. But if the Wall Street Journal is the best that's possible in the digital age, I do consider that unfortunate.

I mostly agree here.

I would say to HansTWN, the horses (readers/subscribers) have bolted the barn, and indeed jumped the corral and are "free roaming." Out West they now call these "feral" or "wild" horses and since the West is very dry right now (wow this is a great analog) the horse are causing problems by denuding the hillsides of foliage causing erosion and runoff when it does rain. Even the Navajos want to round them up for the slaughter houses but this idea offends the "true believers" and so will never be done. We can't even agree about what to do with Spec Manning, or NSA Snowden.

It is an impasse. There is not enough discipline in the the public or government sphere to control the situation.

The big newspapers will slowly die and change to be essentially gossip tabloids. Some specialist papers/magazines like Politico, the WSJ, and of course the Finance mags will survive also.

The only answer I see is a government (like PBS) newspaper organization and that would be anathema to the US populace. (((NO BBC HERE ON THIS WATCH!)))

[TadW]

Words from Washington Post columnist David Ignatius:

Our new owner is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. No self-respecting journalist would shower the new boss with wet kisses, so I won’t. Suffice it to say that he has good values and that he was among the first to figure out a way to make print content (books and newspapers) available in attractive, easy, digital form through the Kindle. And we have to think Bezos is a smart guy, right? He bought a great newspaper. He must understand that being a courageous, principled newspaper owner is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Link

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by TadW

Words from Washington Post columnist David Ignatius:



Link

Nice find.
A bit tongue in cheek but the WP staff has to be hopeful; the sale is a fait accompli and if Bezos isn't the savior they are going to be... Well, the technical term is royally screwed.