I’ve alluded before to the notion that news publishers would love to do what the music industry has done — moving from a free-use, copying Napster era to a low-enough priced, big enough revenue iTunes model.
There are a lot of similarities between digital music and digital news media. They are both infinitely copyable. They take resources to produce but with online distribution the marginal cost of an extra copy is close to zero.
In Napster days, with no alternative, people would share music similar to the way people copy, blog, and share news today.
There are differences, however. People consume news differently than music. It would not be strange for someone to listen to a track several times and enjoy it, perhaps even more than when they first heard it. They might go back and listen to an old favourite or discover music recorded and released decades ago.
News is much different and has rapidly decaying value. It needs currency. Old news reports have residual value, but they are more a historical record and don’t offer the same excitement or enjoyment of hearing it the first time.
News is also more easily replicable than music. To be up on the latest, it’s enough for someone to forward me an e-mail or read me the beginning of a story. Some people want the details, but for many, cursory, current reports that don’t violate copyright may be enough.
If I hear the first ten seconds of a song, or someone tries to hum it for me, it is not the same. I want to hear the full and actual track.
Also, a song from one band may have a similar sound to a song from another, but they will still be very different. But two news reports from different outlets may be much the same.
To move to an iTunes-like model for news, you need some kind of micropayment system. Micropayments sound great. People would pay to read each news story, like they do to get a song.
Because of the differences in consumption, owning the right to read a particular story isn’t as valuable as owning the rights to a song, so a news provider must charge less than a music distributor.
Because of replicability, it is harder to control copying and distribution.
These differences point towards a different model.
First because of differences in consumption it would be better to have a subscription or even a declining balance model (somewhat like micropayments or the using of minutes in a mobile communications plan). Consumers wouldn’t have to decide to purchase individual stories each time they read the news.
Because of the replicability of news, publishers should not try to capture much or any value for commodity news — that is reports of things happening, stuff you get at the beginning of a TV news cast. Those stories may be a vital part of your package, but news organizations need to invest in and sell unique content. Strong local news, investigative reports, and provocative analysis that makes people think are all more differentiated, as are songs from different bands.
The music industry still has many vestigal structures and business models, but in many ways it is way ahead of the news business. We, in the news, should listen to the music, but also know how it is different.