Forum Home
PC World Chat
Thread ID: 126380	2012-08-24 02:10:00	Fairfax and their 3.5 Billon loss!	stuffed (1469)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1296660	2012-08-24 02:10:00	So Fairfax media have managed to post a 3.5 billion loss! No surprise as the change of the information age has snuck up on them much quicker than they thought it would and Mr Fairfax it ain't going to button off. Perhaps if you listened to your customers you may not have found yourself in this situation. Up to a few years ago we paid a one off subscription a year in advance for our provincial newspaper and were happy with that. Now they post us an invoice each month - after some slapping round got them to stop sending the paper invoice but it is still 12 transactions a year through our financial system. Trying to restart the paper after a brief period away is a challenge - the last time went straight to the area manager. Why could they not have a simple online sign in for stop starts? The area manager informed me that there is a full digital edition of our provincial paper available for subscribers (anyone else know dat). Well after dealing with some IT geek in New York for a few days gave up on that too! My wife and I both enjoy the excellent SMH app for the iPad and would be reasonably happily to pay something - but it is currently free! Warren Buffet buying up small media enterprises but my bet he will leave Gina Rinehart to decide what to do with the mess of a once proud media company.	stuffed (1469)
1296661	2012-08-24 02:19:00	The world is changing fast. Many jobs that exist now were not heard of 10 years ago Webmaster Seo Bungy jump operator But really newspaper are their own worst enemies. Why put our digital versions ? Someone has to pay for the journalists to do the reporting! Will tv news be the next to go ? I hardly watch it. Every day I look at the Herald on line and the BBC World on line. I think local newspapers still a have a place. But for how long ? Our local paper the Bay Of Plenty Time is a fraction of the size it once was. I think another factor is that business are not spending as much on big ads. Tasman paper are reducing the size of their production shifts, less newsprint sales, less jobs, less forestry needed !	Digby (677)
1296662	2012-08-24 03:22:00	Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. But the paper newspaper costs money to purchase, why is the online one free? I suppose without material\distribution costs they just rely on the advertising? Listening to their customers seems to be one thing big businesses are often very bad at.	Agent_24 (57)
1296663	2012-08-24 04:03:00	less newsprint sales, less jobs, less forestry needed ! More room for coal-fired power plants to power the data centres behind the online versions :cool:	pablo d (15490)
1296664	2012-08-24 05:01:00	Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. But the paper newspaper costs money to purchase, why is the online one free? I suppose without material\distribution costs they just rely on the advertising? Listening to their customers seems to be one thing big businesses are often very bad at. To attract advertisers, you first need a critical mass of users. Advertisers are also quite wary about in-app advertising. Giving it away free solves the first problem. It's very hard to price something so that it can be supported by subscriptions alone (I used to work on just such a publication), so ensuring you have advertiser support is paramount.	Zara Baxter (16260)
1296665	2012-08-24 05:26:00	They have to start somewhere with online subscriptions.* Why not offer a package deal - eg Your local paper say plus the SMH plus one of their stable of magazines. To sit back like they are and report in 12 months another massive loss - well think about it! Have a mate well up in their food chain and he is as frustrated as hell with their non action.	stuffed (1469)
1296666	2012-08-24 06:17:00	Yeah I've never understood why a subscription doesn't also entail premium access to online things as well. Not PressF1 of course, but other things like news articles, or reviews (Say you do a very in-depth review of the latest Tablet, first few paragraphs doing an introduction are free, the rest costs).	Chilling_Silence (9)
1