What Google does not count of the press

Google worries about the press. Very worried. In spite of the enormous growth of the searcher and his business, the newspapers and the information keep on representing a the majority of the principal webs and contents in which it commercializes information. But also the generation of content for the informative newspapers and a half feeds the searches and it is the incentive of the attention of many users.
But also, the publishers are one of the principal pursuers of Google, to whom they claim a major portion of the advertizing cake of more than 7.100 million dollars that the searcher and comercializador it obtains of his announcements in foreign places. In addition to others that also promote the informative contents in more than 23.650 million dollars that Google invoiced in 2009.
The publishers there have joined the phone companhies and his threat of finishing with the neutrality of the network. Google has tried to pacify the telecos with his promise from which the mobile will bring benefits for all, but the pressure grows.
So much that up to the FTC, the North American regulator of the competition, has started investigating the wealth of Google.
His economist chief, Hal Varian, defends himself with an economic study of the newspapers from which he emphasizes several information:
The role and the impression are the principal cost of the newspapers. The diffusion and the invoicing of the newspapers was already falling down before the Internet explosion. The searchers feed the traffic of the newspapers between 35 and 40 %. A big part of the invoicing publiciaria online, still very small, of 5 % of average in the North American press, comes thanks to the commercialization of Google. Like earlier a big part of the invoicing was coming from special sections and not from the principal body of news about the newspaper.
The level of attention of the newspapers in Internet is very low: they have less readership that in role although every time they grow more while it lowers the diffusion, but only 70 seconds happen reading the newspaper opposite to 25 minutes on the role pages.
Conclusion:
The newspapers have to bet for the new platforms, there is no many option to charge for the information due to the informative plenty and the competition, and the transition to leave the role must be as rapid as possible, so that costs save themselves and be gained the new publics.
In so many things we agree - publishers, journalists, experts - that have no sense the olvidos and distortions of Google.
First, a clarification: the economic study of the North American newspapers that Google does does not coincide largely with the reality of the Spanish, European press, and of other countries.
In most of the markets the costs of the newspapers are more brought near to information that here we have analyzed often, with a major incidence of the income of the diffusion (sale of copies) and of the publicity of the general body and the classified ones, not of the special sections.
But the study and the conclusions of Hal Varian forget also three fundamental factors. And it does it with certain innocence or with a bad surprising will for anyone that knows the business of the press: he does not calculate the time that the income of the role is still going to be very superior to the digitalises and when it is the moment adapted to stop the rotary ones, but especially the responsibility of Google in the reduction of the prices of the publicity online with a continuous fall of the CPM for the means (what in due time I called the quandary of Google) and his mastery of the digital market and his commercialization, for which it fights with other companies as Apple in the new platforms.
The income of diffusion of the newspapers has grown in the last years for the economic crisis and the increase of the price of sale. The advertizing invoicing has lowered almost 40 % in two years and only the sale has braked the fall of the income despite the loss of circulation.
The Spanish newspapers have happened of invoicing 60 % of publicity and 40 % of diffusion to the opposite. Even the leader The Country obtained 45 % of his income for sale of copies in 2009 opposite to ten points less a few years ago.
In the United States, The New York Times has happened in less than five years of 20 % of the income for diffusion to 35 %.
But the study of Google also affirms that "the newspapers have never done a lot of money of the news" to set to the sections special and segmented like cars, trips, hearth, etc. like principal source of income. False in most cases.
The ignorance or the bad faith are overwhelming. It is possible to discuss if the newspapers do his money of the informative product, of the support or of his mastery of the market, but the newspapers have his principal economic fortitude in the field of general news. The tariff and the income are major than in any other supplement or offprint except for the classified ones, there where there are still a fortitude of the press. A limited income channel and even lost in the last years in favor of Internet and of the classified free ones.
For all that the argumentation of Google is vague and skew. Since it did already not long ago in his promotional campaigns on having hidden the publicity, traciona his motto of not harming, to conceal shames that it should not be, like his advertizing domain in the Network.
I do not know if Google will convince the members of the FTC and of course they will applaud those who are glad about the crisis of the press, but certainly a report as this one increases the suspicions between the journalists and those who know the business of the information.
Google is partly responsible for the landslide of prices of the publicity on the market of the plenty. It has served to him to commercialize volume to low cost instead of quality. Today it is an enormous threat on having turned into the big comercializador and distributor of the information, just as it it wants to be in other areas like the video or the books.
But also it is a part of the solution for the means with his innovation in formats, commercialization and ways of consumption of contents.
It defends his business, his future and also it creates value and improves the access to the contents. But to justify that the future of the press and his business is not in the role a study does not need with pretensions and a half truths so skew.
Don't be evil, Google. A little of credibility, the same for that one asks to the informative means, although perhaps demand should be too much for a searcher and comercializador of publicity.
030910 Hal Varian Imprisoned FTC