The search for a way to monetize the online newspaper and magazine business goes on, with the CEO of Time Warner suggesting that online magazines go behind a monetized Web wall.

Jeffrey Bewkes, the CEO of Time Warner, is the latest person to suggest that online newspapers and magazines need to charge for the content that they put online. Speaking the obvious at an investor meeting in New York, Bewkes said, “It makes no sense, as you all know, to run a publishing business with no cost for the content.”

This is becoming a popular sentiment for newspapers and magazines, especially the former, as advertising revenues continue to fall for print issues, but more and more people get their news for free on the Web sites of newspapers that are going broke in the world of brick, mortar, and newsprint. All of this is against the backdrop of major newspaper after newspaper shutting their doors because the revenue is not there to continue publishing a paper.

The problem with the suggested solution is that readers have clearly demonstrated that they are not willing to pay for news that is behind a wall. When the New York Times tries and fails to charge for online news, it is clear that there is a disconnect between the publishers and the consumers of news.

Bewkes did not say that Time Warner was going to charge for content. He just said that there was no sense in publishing content without fees, according to an AP story. Of course, there is no need for Time Warner to make much sense. This is the company that has been running AOL for all these years. Still, many more mistakes like the years-long AOL debacle could put a large dent in even a Time Warner sized container.

Although he did not say that he would charge for news, Bewkes did say that he saw no reason to give away other sorts of content. Speaking of Time Warner’s cable and other broadcast properties, he said, “If you ask yourself should we take all of those and put them on broadband and blow up the carriage fees? Probably not. It doesn’t sound good to me.”

Still, with regard to print content, there seems to be a very sticky problem. News is pretty much the same wherever it is printed, whether it is in the New York Times or the smallest daily on the planet. When news outlets were localized, as in newspapers, that was all right. Now that they and we are all on the Web, there are thousands of places to go for the same content. Unless all newspapers retreat behind a wall at once, paid content will not work for them, and it would take some interesting revisions to the anti-trust laws to allow the newspapers to get together and erect that wall at the same time.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 3:57 pm under Advertising, Ecommerce, Internet.

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
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