Raise the Hammer

I'd still like to hear Wayne's business plan for news organizations struggling with declining print revenues?
Many people have expressed an opinion on The Spec based on its content... and that's total fair game. I dislike eggplant, so, I don't just buy it anyway so I can support eggplant farmers.
This transition for the media has its bumps but ideally the public will benefit from increased focus on content.
For decades, print media has placed too much focus on ad revenues and not enough focus on content. I believe people will pay for good content... and it's up to news organizations to deliver. This is an exciting challenge for publishers as well as journalists. Journalists have played second fiddle to the sales department for decades, and now with declining print revenues, publishers now realize they have to refocus on content which is good for the profession and good for the public.
Think about this:
• in 2012, Google made more money from ad revenue than all US print media combined. As an aggregator that relies on content generation, this is a double edged sword. Google reaps profits on the backs on content generators.
• Currently, $22 is lost in print revenue for every $1 gained in digital ads

Personally, I see this move in an historical context: We’re going back to our origins to once again promote the one revenue stream that newspapers were born from – subscriptions.
Admittedly, print media owners never adapted properly to the internet. They falsely believed they could generate enough revenue from online ads to support open content. It is simply not sustainable.
In addition, marketers are increasingly finding alternative ways to target consumers... much of it thru social media streams. The ad market adapted, while print media sat back in denial.

Information has become verticalised.
We used to talk only about the need to aggregate audiences. Now we speak increasingly about segmenting audiences — and how they segment themselves.
Consumers increasingly access information in deep vertical shafts rather than the broad but shallow bundles of yesteryear. This behaviour is amplified by digital.
Recognizing the debundling of the print package (or the broadcast news one for that matter) is nothing new. But what opportunities does the changed behaviour of news and information consumers generate?
In the classic model, producers organized their news and information into freight cars of national news, local news, foreign news, sports news, entertainment news, business news etc., etc.
These were aimed at mass audiences. As such, the bundle was a mile wide and six inches deep. Some subject areas, such as city hall or the local baseball team, might even be a foot deep.
But the approach lent itself more to breadth than depth, a situation that became aggravated as newsprint costs rose and newsroom budgets shrank. Coverage of smaller subsets in the bundle, such as horseracing, shrank from two pages to one page to a spot of agate. Bigger subsets like business or political news have also suffered.
Today, readers can delve as deeply as they desire into subject areas of their choosing through regular visits to specialised sites and blogs or by downloading relevant apps. They can “favourite” sources through RSS feeds and engage in conversations on Twitter.
Some might like politics and baseball, others cooking or ultimate fighting or science. But while the classic, bundled newspaper may be a starting point it does not fully satisfy the newly acquired taste for depth.
The vertical self-organisation of audiences presents new business possibilities. If just 2% of your newspaper audience was passionate about horseracing, they lacked sufficient mass for you to devote resources to it in the bundle. But if half of that 2% is willing to pay for a specialised digital product, the game changes.
As we slice and dice our audiences, all kinds of potential new products suggest themselves. Some may be directed at as few as 5,000 or even 500 people.
The question is: Can publishers go deep enough with relevant and unique information, preferably in geographic or subject area pockets protected from the digital giants. Can we entice end users to pay? If we can, we will also have created an efficient buy for targeted advertising.
The paywall is a crass game of catch up. No doubt. However, there is compelling evidence across North America that efforts to re-educate consumers on the value of content and journalism is having traction.
There is also a plethora of alternative content generators like RTH that help educate and engage our community thru compelling and valuable content. I say the more the better.
Again, this all comes down to free will - you have the choice. I believe many will publicly grumble and quietly acquiesce.
It's interesting to parallel the passionate efforts in Hamilton to preserve a historical building in Gore Park, yet some of the same people are actively encouraging the demise of one of Hamilton's most historic institutions founded in 1846. Seems as a community we should all rise to save our identity be it a building or a newspaper.