The San Diego Daily Transcript, which traces its roots back to 1882, eventually will be replaced completely by counterpart SanDiegoSource.com, which went online in 1994; both are owned by the Revelle-Scripps family. This little tidbit was buried in a piece about the pay-no pay debate by the competing San Diego Business Journal so maybe it’s just news to me but it’s worth exploring.
SanDiegoSource.com is no newcomer. The companyclaimsbragging rights as “the first newspaper in Southern California to publish on the then embryonic World Wide Web.” It’s started as a free site eventually moving most of its content behind the pay wall.It’s no cheap in print or online: $337.50 for 2 years online/print; $200, 1 year; $124, 6 months; $70, 3 months; $100, 1 year online only. The two-week print trial doesn’t even come with online access. The slogan flashing on the subscribe display ad shows they know their readers: “It’s the information age. How old is yours?” It is niche, to be sure, with 38,000-plus uniques a week who view more 300,000 pages a week, according to the site.
By comparison, the print edition claims a daily readership of 50,000-plus; that’s the pass-along rate. The company owns the press. For a sense of how much could be saved if they ever do move completely online, consider that they use 660-plus tons of newsprint a year for a tab of at least $300,000 and probably closer to $400,000.
A couple of comments from the SDBJ article re pay-no pay: Chris Jennewein, director of Web operations at http://www.signonsandiego.com, the SD Union-Tribune site, says, “I personally don’t think it makes economic sense (to charge.)” He believes free sites attract more readers. The SDBJ reports that revenues for the site, which has a 65-person staff, have more than doubled in the past three years.
But the more specialized SanDiegoSource.com relies on exclusivity as a draw for paying customers. Sean Gallagher, the Transcript’s Web director: “The U-T might overlap five stories with us on our Web site each day but we’re providing near exclusive information.” The weekly Business Journal charges $3 an article for non-subscribers and $99 for an annual online/print subscription.
Also this important reminder from Julie Rocha, editor and publisher, El Sol de San Diego, which has yet to launch its site, : “Latino newspapers’ (print editions) will be around longer because Latinos are not as apt to have computers in their homes. Anyone that says print is going away — not in many, many moons.”
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