Traditionally, newspaper organisations have not only created the content but also controlled the means of getting it to the consumer. That process now belongs as much to Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter as it does to us. That is why embracing social media and being open is so important – if you can’t get your content across these platforms or let other people link and contribute to it, then your relevance will evaporate.
However, let us be clear that when we talk of ‘audience’ we still mean our readers and we must remember that newspapers have always used a blend of different funding mechanisms to extract revenues for their ‘product’. That’s why I am unconvinced by those who say that the only model that works is to build paywalls. This is not an area where one size fits all. In some news organisations where growth in readership may not be so important and in particular where there is a strong existing print subscriber base to build on, a pure paywall may make excellent business sense. The Economist and perhaps the Times spring to mind here. It also makes sense in other publications which feature business-critical information – for example, the Financial Times and, in the Australian context, the AFR.
