Cuban: Newspapers too cheap?
Mark Cuban, a shrewd businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, suggests newspapers are too cheap. On one hand I agree with him - 35 cents is a ridiculously low price to pay for a full day's worth of reportage. But every time I pick up a newspaper lately, it feels thinner and thinner - full of ads and a few short stories:
Wearing blue jeans and an untucked shirt in front of a crowd of 500 at the Online News Association conference, Dallas Mavericks owner and HDnet founder Mark Cuban said Friday that he couldn't understand why newspapers weren't more expensive.
"The value proposition is much better than what you're having to pay for," he said, speculating that newspaper owners "just don't have the guts" to raise prices.
The suggestion was part of an off-the-cuff Keynote speech at the convention in which Cuban, who recently hired former CBS anchor Dan Rather to host a show on his network, answered questions from the audience on a variety of subjects relating to his take on new media and the future of online information.
"Every high school talent show and every high school theatrical performance should be reviewed and put up on your Web site," added Cuban, who said news sites could better serve their communities by incorporating user-generated content for such niche audiences. The content would be free, easy to access, and would give small community groups a forum which would build a site's brand, he said.
The business of newspapers could certainly use a shot in the arm from a person like Cuban.
1 comment:
What Cuban says is true. I never really thought much about the price of the paper. I was always taught that advertising, not subscriptions, pay the bills. Newspaper publishers believe that, and apparently aren't willing to generate more income through subscriptions for fear of losing readers. But prices are going up everywhere else. Sadly, many newspaper execs would rather cut jobs in the newsroom than raise the newstand price of the paper. Truth is, people who choose not to buy a newspaper each day get their news for free on newspaper websites. And those who prefer the bulky newspaper will always buy one so they have a way to occupy time on their commute or day off from work. I also believe what Cuban says about the high school talent shows being reviewed in the paper would better serve the community. In that example, parents and teachers would not mind buying up all the newspapers in town for whatever cost. Problem is, what die hard journalists don't consider newsworthy is what the community is craving and the one thing television and other mass mediums cannot provide.
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