Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8186701.stm



So, what morons do you think will pay for Sky news?

More importantly, how quickly do you think people will put news up on the torrent sites.

NewzTorrentz.ru!!!!!11111

With the added bonus of Svetlana from St Petersburg putting big cucumber in bum in the banner ads!

This won't affect me, seeing as I only read BBC News.

Well yes, but it could have a big impact on the landscape of how content is delivered across the internet.

Edit: Does anyone except morons choose Sky news of the BBC?

CNN ftw.

Reuters is free. I only follow them anymore, anyway. PURE FACT. (ish)

I wonder how much he will be charging for the Sun? I imagine that some will subscribe to the Times but I can't see anyone wanting to read the articles individually from the currant bun.

5p for Katie from Norwich and her thought for the day.

Paying to read the news online? GTFF.

(I only look at BBC news anyway).

It's not Sky News that he's bothered about. It's his newspapers. He may well be making all his websites subscription but what's narked him is the lack of advertising revenue in his papers.

Chinny prediction: Sky Broadband customers will get free access to these websites. So Murdoch can control all aspects of the media you view.

Only if you're a Sun reading Sky subscriber.

This won't work if other newspaper sites don't charge.

Also - Sun and Sky cross subsidise by cross advertising.

Of which I'd bet there is considerable crossover.

In anycase, as you've identified, they can cross promote.

So fuck their moronic customers. Who cares.

Council estate types, but only because they can feign a knee injury and get the tax payer to pay for it.

Now that is interesting.

Thats part of the plot of transmetropolitan, that people have to pay for newswire.

It's such a crazy idea to charge for content like this, hopefully this can be part of Murdoch's end rather the end of the internet as it stands.

There is a huge issue with the press and how you fund it, but I really hope that paying for it isn't the way. Not for news.

Thing is though, that a gatekeeper service like iPhone/XBLA/Kindle etc, could get away with it.

I think I'm going to look back in twenty years and think that gatekeeper stuff killed the internet.

My parents used to get The Sun when I was a teenager, and I'd read it, and some of it was ok.

This week they have some use X vouchers to get a cheap camping holiday, so we've been getting it for them, and it's just a pile of crap, now maybe at 15 I wasn't as discerning as I am now, but the quality of the story is a lot poorer, the size of the paper is a lot smaller, and the number of adverts has increased.

Malc

I think there is scope for premium paid for content on the internet, I just can't see "news" being one of the areas where it would work (unless ALL news was like that, which it won't be).

Malc

Over the last 10 years the amount of proper journalism has decreased and newsrooms have shrunk. Take a look at The Sun today and it's all recycled tat from the Associated Press combined with showbiz news. There's very little original journalism going on unless they are doorstopping some poor sod.

It's a dying medium which is why Murdoch is panicing. Newspapers won't disappear but I think we'll end up with less of them. In fact it surprises me that we haven't had a title go under because they are all considerably weakend.

Here's some figures from December last year. Look at the year on year percentage drops.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/table/2009/jan/09/abc-december-national-newspapers

It's not as if one title is stealing readers from another. They are all losing readers hand over fist!

I'm imaging 6 month old content from Retro Gamer might be a real money spinner, but don't quote me.

Yeah, I'm deeply scared for proper journalism.

But then strangely, every recent example of it has been massively celebrated - so it's bizarre they don't make a bigger deal about it.

Ben Goldacre has said some interesting stuff about this - somebody I forget the name of coined the term churnalism which pretty much sums it up.

In a way I think Murdochs panicking because the authority of all his filthy rags is plummeting, rather than the readership. I want/hope that people don't want the spin of newspapers so much anymore, and can use the internet to compare and contrast stories to get closer to the truth.

Newspapers can't produce 60% of their content by having middle aged, middle class journalists right about their mundane lives and then occasionally write a piece about content they have no capability to understand. (i.e. The MMR vaccine)

I'll be happy when Private Eye is the last man standing, frankly, as it's the only newspaper that actually reports news, as opposed to shitty opinion pieces and tedious bitching crap about slebs.

The last few decent journos at, say, the Guardian can then go work for Private Eye writing for a proper news section which could replace Street of Shame, as it would no longer be needed.

*waves*

I don't pay for the paper though. i read it in the pub at about 3pm, after I've finished the guardian.

Oh......

EDIT: The Guardian has been getting on my nerves more and more recently, so I'm considering a switch to the Times, but I'm unsure.

The Sun has dropped to 20p in a lot of regions now.

They are also pumping around £100 to various shops such as the one I work in to display the paper at the counter to try and boost impulse purchases.

I have now done this, actually. Although a number of Times columnists piss me off too. I'd get the Observer if it was a daily, but sadly not. And soon won't even be a Sunday paper.

I went through a long phase of not buying the Observer as it was Saturday's Guardian reloaded, but have begun buying it now. The only columnist I quite like in the guardian now is Tim Dowing on a Saturday as it makes me laugh. I might get the Times today and have a read. but, over the weekends, I rarely get time to sit down with a paper anymore.

I used to read the Guardian years ago, but I switched to the Independent.

People read newspapers?

I don't buy it often. Usually the IoS when a Test match is on and I've got chance to laze about and read it all day.

If I don't read at elast one everyday, I feel like I'm a thicky and letting everyone down.

Except the Finance and Business sections. They are for gayers.

They've been trying and failing to give away copies outside Shepherd's Bush tube for some time now.

They should try selling them in Liverpool.

I read the Glasgow Herald and hate how the tabloids fabricate and twist stories which the numpties who read them then reitirate as fact. I also hate people who spout the opinions made in these newspapers and claim them as they're own opinions as if they have actually thought about the subject and made up their own mind.

I don't really read the Guardian or Times etc as they are a lot less relevant in Scotland and I was reading one English broadsheet one morning and got really wound up at the columns which all seemed to be blatantly well off people moaning about trivial things.

I remember the now-defunct game site Old Man Murray had a classic quip about when IGN went registration only, admiring how IGN had the decency to protect the rest of the internet by locking themselves off in a virtual safety-deposit box so no-one would accidentally read it.

Same comes to mind here. IGN dropped that practice pretty sharpish, as no one could be arsed and their page-views went through the floor. And that was FREE registration.

I used to buy the independent. But then my pets died, and I no longer needed pet bedding.