Profitable Web Sites Must Wait

Profitable Web Sites Must Wait

    Are profitable newspaper Web sites around the corner? I will tell you I firmly believe that the answer could be "yes." Having said that, we have a lot of work to do before the checks start rolling in.
     What sort of work? Finding effective revenue models, developing competitive sales compensation plans, increasing readership and usage of online products, solving technical issues and on and on.
     As compelling and complex as these issues are, they are not the issues standing between us and profitability. We won’t even get to those issues until we resolve serious conflicts between the promise of new media and the realities of our existing business - the printed newspaper.
     Circulation departments desperately oppose any effort to enhance Web readership (the terms "giving it away for free" and "protecting the franchise" come to mind). This is a reasonable reaction from a department tasked with selling more papers.
     Retail advertising is far from embracing the Web, classified departments have created some uneasy alliances with the Web, fearing to lose revenue. Even our newsrooms – early advocates – are less involved and informed than they might be.
     When will change occur? When will we develop the foundations necessary to build profitability? This will happen when ownership decides it must happen and clearly commits to the future of the newspaper on the Internet, in spite of the short term risk to the current core product.
     Until this commitment is made and communicated to the management teams of our local papers, profitability will wait.
     Agree or disagree? Please let me know. You may email me at The Herald-Mail at markk@herald-mail.com.

Kelly is information systems manager at The Herald-Mail in Hagerstown. He is a member of the MDDC Technology Committee.