Are Some Print News Organizations Becoming Obsolete Because of This Practice?

Are print news media companies, such as the Houston Chronicle (owned by the Hearst Corporation) slowly ruining their business by putting their news content on line at a fraction of the cost to the consumer? This is a question I would like to address in today’s article.

If you’ve read the headlines recently, you may have noticed some newspaper organizations going out of business or at the least, seeing a major drop in readers. When you lose readers, you also lose high-paying advertisers, which plays a major role in how newspaper companies make a profit.

Putting aside politics, could it be that some print news organizations are losing revenue due to the availability of information on-line (for a lot less)?

On-line Access
My antennas went up when I received an email from Amazon.com this morning. They were inviting me to purchase a Kindle for father’s day.

“What’s a Kindle?”, you ask.

The Kindle is a new e-book/e-news reader that allows you to purchase and download books, magazines, and, yes, even daily newspapers on-line.

The kindle looks sleek and is actually much thinner than most books, but powerful enough to hold an entire encyclopedia in terms of the amount of information which can be stored inside.

If you go to the Amazon-Kindle page, you’ll find a list of books, newspapers, and magazines with monthly prices on them.

I was looking through the various newspapers on Amazon in which I can purchase for the Kindle and found the Houston Chronicle for the low price of only $5.99 per month. Not sure if this includes the weekend editions, but if so, the “Chronicle” is no doubt, losing money.

I believe the weekday paper is around 75 cents and the weekend rate is around $1.25 (I still need to research the exact figures).

Using these numbers, it would cost around $9.25 versus downloading it to a Kindle for only $5.99

So, will this eventually put an end to the printing press as we know it? Will these companies eventually go on-line exclusively? I guess only time will tell.

One thing is for certain…

By selling books, newspapers, and magazines digitally (on line), there will be less of a need for employees.

If, let’s say, the Houston Chronicle were to go on-line exclusively, they would only have to create one newspaper edition in a digital-download format, then post it on line. That’s it!

No more messy ink, no more assembly lines, left over paper (trash) or killing poor, defenseless trees (a little smirky sarcasm injected here).

Something that would be extremely valuable about having your newspapers, books, and magazines in an electrical format is that you would be able to archive these issues and could easily do searches for old articles and stories without having to dig through stacks of yellowed, tattered papers and cardboard.

Just some things to ponder the next time you visit your favorite news stand or book store.

Want to see this remarkable technology for yourself?

Go experience the Kindle here.