ABC TV news is free. It always has been, it always will be. Same thing goes for ABC Radio. But news programs on the ABC don’t rate very well. They don’t rate very well because:

• The ABC hasn’t got enough money to pay for the hottest weather girls (no offence Jenny Woodward, I love you)
• ABC news programs don’t undertake large-scale branding campaigns and if they try, they are dwarfed by the commercial networks
• The programs they put on before the news programs don’t rate very well
• Commercial news tends to be more ‘tabloid’ and appeals to a broader audience

This makes sense. It’s rational. People don’t doubt the quality of the journalism on the ABC, or the talent of the reporters, they just prefer other news because it’s more exciting. And if they’re in front of the idiot box at 6pm they’ll just flick to whatever channel they usually watch. Which is why Channel 7 and Channel 9 news on Sunday nights are consistently some of the highest rating programs in Australia.

Which is cool, except that more and more people are getting their news online these days. At the moment online news channels fall into pretty much the same sort of categories as TV news. You’ve got the ABC, and you’ve got the commercial networks. Except that online, the newspapers and the broadcasters and the ABC all compete for eyeballs. Which kind of flies in the face of media-ownership laws, but no-one seems to care because it’s the Internet.

I’d argue that because it’s the Internet there are an infinite number of potential news channels. Actually, that’s a lie, there are 6 billion potential news channels. Presuming animals can’t write news stories. Although bears can play ice hockey, so who knows, maybe there will be a bear news channel soon. Either way, it won’t be long before citizen journalism actually really properly happens in a meaningful way. Follow the Twitter feed of any major news story and you’ll get information more up-to-date than any major news source because chances are, you’ll be reading eyewitness accounts straight from the plane crash/riot/party room, whatever.

Murdoch’s idea that people will pay to get online news from News Corporation is completely misguided. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. Demand for news is high. Very high. But supply is infinite. People might read News Corp websites at the moment, but if news.com.au has a subscription cost and smh.com.au doesn’t, people will flock in droves to the free choice. It’s not a matter of choosing a ‘tabloid’ over a broadsheet either. Online newspapers are virtually all pieces of populist proletariat shite. As soon as one publication charges money, people will flock to the one that doesn’t. And there will always be an entrepreneur or a government department somewhere along the line with a free news website. (Or a free celebrity gossip website, or a free sports website, or a free travel website; you get my drift).

Journalists argue that unless publishers make money, they won’t get paid and the quality of journalism will suffer. That’s a bit like the warning at the start of the DVD which says that if you watch a pirated DVD you’re hurting the future of the film industry. It’s like a record company saying that pirating music hurts artists. It’s a load of bollocks. News, and opinion, like art, is in the hands of the creators. Before there were big movie studios and big record labels everyone flocked to the town square to be entertained by a talented groups of poorly paid artists. The town square is now online, we’ve actually come full circle. News is the same. I can now get my news straight from someone who was there and my opinions from whoever has a blog at hand. Credibility of the sources is quickly decided by the public. I don’t need Bill O’Reilly, Laurie Oakes or Richard Wilkins to enlighten me, I have Mike Wilson, Alizera Sedaghat and Perez Hilton.

You could argue that. like movie studios, Government news channels and commercial networks still have a place producing ‘blockbuster’ journalism. You could argue that without professional reporters there would never be another Watergate, and you’d be right. But the revenue to pay those reporters isn’t going to come from individuals. Individuals as a group just don’t care enough. It needs to come from taxes. But to avoid the government having a monopoly on the news (which would be cool if you could trust your government, but populations inherently don’t) there needs to be publishers from the free market.

Free-market publishers can make their money any (legal/ethical) way they choose. Donations and subscriptions from happy customers and subsidies work OK, but they’re not ideal. The best way we’ve figured out so far is advertising. It’s a pretty sweet deal to be honest. People are, in general, pretty happy to sit through some ads if they know they get a good content pay-off. Hell, if the content is that good people will happily head to JB HI-Fi to buy the whole DVD series. The problem is, news just ain’t that entertaining. No one is going to want to pay for it, unless it has a direct bearing on their wallet, as is the case with The Wall Street Journal.

The Punch, News Corp’s blog, did a pretty good job with their Liberal Party coverage today, but they were still beaten to the punch by the Twittersphere. I found out Turnbull hadn’t lost the leadership from @warlach, not David Penberthy. Unless News Corp has a monopoly on news, something they’ve always wanted, something they’ll never ever get, no one is going to part with cash to get it online. And as long as we have other free Internet distractions, and I’m fairly certain we will Rupert, you’re stuck with an advertising model. Learn to love it.

Tags: rupert murdoch

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Hot Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.