The Razorbacks begin fall practice on August 6th. But if you want to read about the Hogs first football practice of the 2009 season in the online editions of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette or Northwest Arkansas Times, you’re probably going to have to pay up for it.
That’s because starting on August 5th, only current print subscribers or online readers willing to pay $5.95 per month (or $59.00 per year) will be able to view daily newspaper stories on their online properties, NWAnews.com and WholeHogSports.com. (Thankfully, The Slophouse blog will continue to be free.)
While we won’t attempt to debate here the future viablity of the newspaper industry, no one should be surprised by this move. Publisher Walter Hussman, Jr. has for several years been an advocate of closing off free online access to the articles in his daily newspapers.
The bad timing for Razorback football fans, of course, may or may not be coincidental. Typically, some of the highest traffic volume of the year here on this site is the first week of fall practice. So if you’re going to charge for Razorback-related online content, that’s probably as good a time as ever to start.
The press release announcing the move yesterday cited the heated newspaper competition in Northwest Arkansas as one of the reasons why this change hasn’t happened until now. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the Stephens Media newspapers to make a similar move now that one side has ‘blinked.’
Hussman’s argument that there’s no business model (i.e. money to be made) in giving something away is certainly understandable. While Hussman’s family is believed to be one of the richest in Arkansas, the journalists and other newspaper employees who work for him certainly have to put food on the table. Fans as well as ‘enthusiasts’ like us who have ‘real jobs’ and produce online content as a part-time endeavour certainly understand that, too.
As for how this change affects our site, we’ve always had a standing policy to not link to paid content — mainly to avoid sending our readers to articles they couldn’t view. But I guess we may have to reconsider that now. We’re looking into how we would update our News section to designate articles that are paid content.
As for our little corner of the Internet, as we said when we first started, the content we produce for this site will continue to be “free…with no hidden fees or surcharges.”
No surcharges, that is, unless you decide to click on some of the newspaper article links.
Tipster, if you are asking my opinion (you haven't), I'd say just leave off the fee based sites as a general rule too. However, if you end up having a large number of readers that have accounts, I can certainly understand the easy that this would provide. However, keep in mind that some of us are not local to Arkansas and won't have an account since we don't subscribe to either of these papers so clicking a link and being asked to sign-in would be a waste of my time.
Owasso, thanks for your feedback. It's always welcome. We definitely get a lot of readers like you from out of state on our site. (Several from out of the country, too!)
Just to be clear, everyone will still have the option to continue reading the ADG/NWAT newspaper content online even if they don't receive the print edition. This change will just force people (in or out of state) to decide if that content is worth paying for online.
I, for one, haven't subscribed to the print edition in years (and honestly don't plan to start now.) So I will have to make the decision as to whether to subscribe online. I'm sure there are many others like me (more than the Mr. Hussman realizes) that live in the online world that will now have to make that choice as well.
As one of our friends (who's a reporter) said, it's certainly a bold move. Only time will tell if it was the right move or not.
I've already made the choice… the answer is STILL no! For me, this even includes the premium RazorVision site.
Newspapers are a dead medium, and have been on the decline for years. This decision proves that old dogs can't learn new tricks.
Look for Hog fans to get their football practice information from the many free and more timely sources as they've done for years.
What math are you using to get $59.00 per year from $5.95 per month?
Tigers…not my math…their pricing incentive for paying for a year in advance.
Ok, I'm feeling like the odd man out since I have a weekend subscription to the print edition that, from a tree hugger standpoint, I feel very guilty about. Since the coupons tend to make it a price performer, I intend to keep it. As a benefit it lets me into the on-line site. I suppose I'll have to actually start using that log-on.
I don't think we've done the math, but I'm pretty certain we send WholeHogSports a ton of hits. Traffic drives the value of the advertising on that site. I suspect it will decrease greatly.
I'm sure we at RazorBloggers will be glad to continue linking them if they will provide a little kick back of the subscription $$ to us.