Preserving something valuable in our culture

In this morning's New York Times, Maureen Dowd wrote a timely column about the news that Time Magazine has met its demise. Toward the end, she wrote this:

"It will be good if this moment provokes a reckoning about what really needs to be preserved in the culture, about what is valuable.

"Many content providers and managers — formerly known as reporters and editors — have stopped believing in their own value and necessity. But the gatekeepers in the content class have to understand the world in which we’re living and wield their judgment.

"Digital platforms are worthless without content. They’re shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they’re empty sacks.

"It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you’re reading. It is about what you’re reading."

Speaking for myself, Maureen is very wrong, and she is very right.

She is wrong when she says, "It is not about pixels versus print." It is very much about pixels versus print. The print business model was very simple. Hundreds of years ago, advertisers, seeing newspapers starting to spew out of the new print technology introduced by Gutenberg, quickly seized on the idea of riding the backs of newspapers through a family's front door and into their living room.

Publishers loved it too, because they quickly seized on the idea of charging advertisers for space in their newspapers. By the mid-20th century, hundreds of newspapers were being published in the United States, and getting through the front door into millions of homes. Publishers and advertisers could agree on affordable ad rates because the ads would be seen by so many people. There was a multiplier effect.

Newspaper publishers learned they could get very rich by establishing a 60-40 business model: 60 percent of every newspaper would contain ads, and the other 40 percent would be reader content. If you've ever wondered how publishers decided on the number of pages in any given edition, it was determined by ad sales. When the ad deadline was reached, publishers calculated the newsprint space the ads would require, then added 40 percent, and that total space determined the number of pages in that paper.

When pixels showed up, that very solid, mutually satisfactory and long-lived business model went blooey. Advertisers learned they could get into homes with very inexpensive but flashy digital productions, and a url. They didn't need newspapers any more. Newspapers became a bit player in advertisers' multi-media purchasing schemes.

There is an obvious fix, easy to initiate but difficult to propagate. In the old print business model, advertising revenue carried the load, and subscribers contributed a trickle. In the new pixel business model, they just need to be reversed: advertisers provide the trickle, and subscriber revenue carries the load. It will work because, again, there is a multiplier effect.

Speaking for myself, no blog should go over 500 words. So I'll stop here, and take this up again tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.