The payment in Internet does not save Financial Times

The payment procedure of Financial Times does not save his results. The operative benefits of the economic journal fell down 42 % in 2009 (39 million pounds sterling, 43,2 million euros), with a reduction of the invoicing of 12 % (395 million euros).
His payment strategy for consumption or for intensity (metered model) has allowed him to obtain 126.000 digital subscribers and 750 licenses of company, an increase of 15 % with regard to 2008.
It is not possible to consider a big result, but it improves the numbers of 2004, when with his previous payment model it overcame 80.000 subscribers.
The users registered in FT.com are 1,8 millions, which another 1,4 millions join in FTChinese.com, where Pearson, his publishing company, he has chosen to expand.
But the diffusion of the newspaper keeps on falling down, 7 %, to remain in 402.799 copies.
Pero Pearson supports that the payment strategy for contents is the best future for the informative means. The publicity keeps on overcoming to the payment in the invoicing of Financial Times, but Pearson entrusts more in the future of the payment for services that in the advertizing investment due to the scarce profitability of the digital publicity.
Interactivate Byline, his company of information and financial services, it marks the way. It is consolidated like leader of the business of information of the group with an increase of sales of 5 % (484 million pounds sterling) and 7 % of growth of the benefits: 148 millions.
With this information, FT Publishing, the division of informative means of Pearson obtains 81 % of his income of payment and subscriptions thanks to Interactive Data while the low publicity to 19 %. The perspectives of the company insist that the advertizing market will be still volatile while the payment business will grow.
The bet for the digital information does also that the digital income is already 73 % opposite to only 27 % of the role, on the contrary than in the year 2000.
The Economist, where Pearson possesses 50 % of the capital, it continues his growth in diffusion up to 1,42 million copies, 2,2 % more than in 2008.
The results of the company are not different from those of other big groups like Hurry or The Washington Post Company, with which it coincides with the bet for the business of the education, the engine of the benefits in the three.
The business of the education allows to Pearson to increase his income 4 %, the same as the increase of his operative benefits, of 858 million pounds sterling, 947,7 million euros.
Lessons of the strategy Financial Times:
Change towards the digital business: of the products role to the digitalises, both in the division of education and in the informative one and in the books, where the sale of ebooks of Penguin has gone off from the appearance of Kindle de Amazon. Groups as The Washington Post or The New York Times already obtain 15 % of his income of the digital business, while in Spain the proportion is still much more a-year-old fall 8,7 % of the advertizing income in Vocento and minor in Hurry and, of course, in the televisions.
The contents as service. Pearson is sure that the new business of the contents and the information happens for turning into services providers when the information is a process.
I pay for reading instead of the sale of copies. The business of the information and the contents as service changes the old model of the sale of contents into the subscriptions and the licenses, the affiliation and the search of the profitability with a base coontinua and clients' believer.
It is the same strategy of the music in Internet or of the payment for reading, the model to which they stretch the ebooks and the digital book in the cloud (cloud computing).
When the information and the contents are permanent accessible in Internet from many devices, the sale and the proper concept of property of the information disappear: one pays for the reading and the consultation. Of a property model to one of services.
To improve the efficiency and the profitability. The new structure and the efficiency in the management and the costs of Pearson allows to support the profitability margins. Financial Times supports profitability of 10 % and in Interactive Data it climbs up to 25 % thanks to the benefits of the prosecution of information and his distribution multiproduct, which has grown with the services in real-time (19 % of the sales of the company of financial information and of market).
New platforms of distribution and user's experience. The new digital supports like ebooks, mobile, iPads, etc. are the hope of the business of the contents. Penguin already has 14.000 books in format ebook and the application for iPhone of FT.com has unburdened itself 200.000 times.
The business of the payment for information is not yet sufficient. FT.com it has achieved a conversion valuation of users registered to subscribers of 7 %, much underneath of the margins necessary for the sostenibilidad. His 126.000 pay an average for 172 euros per year, a few income for 21,7 million euros. The payment income in Internet sound 6 % of the invoicing of Financial Times, much underneath of the proportion necessary for a newspaper of his characteristics. That's why the publicity keeps on being essential like principal business of the information until it does not become possible to reach about 30 % of the income for the digital means.
Mixed, social business and multiplatform. The social flow, the participation of the users, the business for access across different platforms marks the future of Pearson and Financial Times, like that of so many means and companies of contents. Without this development of a hybrid business both in income and in publicity the support of the means will be very difficult.

The press suffers in Portugal

Portugal is not an exception. The Portuguese press has suffered a strong diffusion fall in 2009. The biggest newspapers finish the year with important losses and only the new newspaper I grows strongly in his first year of life, with a sale of 14.963 copies after the year finishes.
The information of Associaçao Portuguesa for or I Control of Tiragem and Circulaçao (APTC) reflects strong newspapers falls like Day's wage of News (79 thousand copies), Public (34.150) or Diário of News (26.453).
Correio gives Manha it is one of the few ones that lasts, with a diffusion of 122.319 copies.
I Informaçao registered a big diffusion increase in his first six months of life that seems to have been braked. The diffusion at the end of the third trimester of the year was 14.245 and it obtained 700 more copies at the end of year.
The million only visitors overcame his web in November and it demonstrates again that the new means especially faced to the young public, obtain more hearing in Internet than in the kiosk.

A free one to comment without reading

The new one What is already in the street. And the staples are his bet in role and the comments in Internet. Two ways of seizing the information with different targets and results. The first one avoids to lose the pages, the second one loses the approach in the information to turn the newspaper into a reality show.
The staple is an old ABC advantage. Although many people have studied the formula to offer a newspaper to which him the sheets do not fall down, almost they all have desisted for the cost and the complications of production that he supposes.
Now a free one subscribes to a format more expensive than that of the means of payment.
The comments are the new star of What in Internet. It does not wonder. The free one thrown by Recluses and later bought by Vocento to a price that still ballasts the accounts of the group was born like blogratuito with the intention of making use of the contents of the blogs to relieve his deficits of local information.
It did not work for lack of informative contents and quality, and certainly I push back of the blogueros to deliver his contents to a way.
In December, 2008 it to reconvertirse in social environment and it created a proper social network again.
A bet that we had initiated in ADN.es between the Spanish informative means and to which the Vocento means have joined.
But the nut return of What, in contrast to the regional press of the group or of ABC.es, is it to put in the first line the comments of the users.
Up to the point on that for the first time it is incited to comment without reading the information on having allowed the comments from the fronts, without coming to the articles.
It is a dangerous strategy. I do not have any doubt that the means must be social. I bet long ago for it and keep on doing it. But to create hardware and social space in the means needs to diminish the noise, to personalize the use of the information and to make use to the maximum of the social criterion and the exchange in real-time. But also to study in depth the information and to provide the hardware user to be related to who wants and to choose how he wants to share his contents and his identity.
I do not believe any of these targets be achieved by the new formula of What, although yes in the profiles of the users, incorporated in the previous change. Neither that the out-standing comments help to improve the social flow, which fundamentally is to share contents and to create social criterion.
Rather this presence covers with stars of the comments can provoke an enormous noise in a way that tries to be informative, an incentive for the ego and the least creative and interesting commentators.
Also it is a formula difficult to promote. The comments are worse the more general practitioner is the product, and with a way which first two sections are curious News and Famous persons, one can do to himself idea of the quality of the participation. And therefore of the publicity that he bets for this model.
It is a formula to banish to the whole publicity and the business formulae that are not based only on the volume. A less and less accurate advertizing strategy.
The comments are one more step in the strategy of popular press of What. Till now it has not given to him very much been the result and in spite of the enormous clippings in his costs, in 2009 it lost 4,9 million euros again in 2009.
The free ones are the popular press of the XXIst century along with the sports one. But both 20 Minutes and ADN support formulae of major informative ambition.
Commenting is not to be informed, but the model Qué.es can be an alternative to the chat.

The World throws his payment platform

The World in Orbyt. This way the new payment platform will appear today in Internet of The World. A bet for increasing the payment business with sources of financing that extend the already traditional one in Internet.
The newspaper directed by Pedro J. Ramírez will offer from Monday for 14,99 euros a new platform to consult all his editions in pdf and prepared for the new platforms like the iPad.
An enlargement of the already existing contents of payment in elmundo.es that a readership club joins, one of the payment procedures for contents explored by other newspapers as The Times or The Daily Telegraph.
This readership club will allow to gain access to papers, interact with the writing - in the style of the original Factual - and benefit from promotions, discounts and other offers.
The beginning of the implatación of a 360th, essential business for the future of the means.
Will Orbyt be the answer?
The edition in pdf has not been it nor will be a big business, but it is the first step that if it advances to the rhythm of the new platforms of access to information, will be one of the new routes of commercialization.
The clubs of readership linked to offers, ecommerce and other initiatives of direct marketing are essential to compensate the low prices and scarce yield of the digital publicity.
The development of a business of payment as these routes has the advantage of not penalizing the access to the digital way and of not losing, therefore, any of his opportunities. Little by little we will see readership clubs in almost all the means. And those who do not hurry up will lose a good opportunity.
orbyt

The crisis of the press sends Spiderman to the unemployment

Not even the superheroes are saved. The publisher J. Jonah Jameson dismisses Peter Parker, as so many people others in the real life. (route)

The Country and ABC integrate his writings

Two traditional writings begin his restructuring between this week and the next one: ABC and The Country advance towards the convergence of press and Internet with steps for the integration of his writings.
Both will support specific teams for role and web, but with integrated writings. The two chase the same target: to achieve that the editors and the sections of the role produce information for the web with new rhythms, styles and contents.
As in almost all the writings, the physical structure changes in both cases to improve the functionality. In ABC it will be a central table in star to coordinate the work while in The Country it is decided in favor of a configuration that some describe as a bar bar, where to finish contents, and others speak about a model more similar to a modern system of distribution of delicatessen. As if The Bulli was serving covers.
In ABC the integration comes together with a change of design, both in the daily role and in the web, which one is working for months with the support of Alfredo Triviño, the director of art of News Corporation, which took part already in the renewal of the local newspapers of Vocento.
In The Country there will not be immediate changes of format and product. The persons in charge of the project prefer to be employed at the writing to improve the work process.
But the reorganization of the writing of The Country will affect to most of the headquarters of section. There will be even incorporations of other means of group, like the television Four.
After two hard years of crisis in the press and a strong reduction of costs and jobs, the big national newspapers begin a new stage towards the convergence and the multimedia.
Today there appears also the new offer of payment of The World, the newspaper that more has advanced in his definition of the only and multimedia way, although the integration of his writing makes be waited more than in his competitors.

The public TV slims

RTVE in strike for the slimming remedy and we return to the past with the file programs. Politicians, managers and workpeople differ on the necessary treatment. In Great Britain the almighty BBC he proposes shock therapy: to produce quality programs, to reduce his expansion in Internet, to close magazines and specializing radio stations.

A less expensive public television. The opposite of done last years. The BBC has grown as never. It is already not a radio and television, it is the emblem of what they called the digital Great Britain. Here the previous model of RTVE, constructed by Luis Fernández, was growing elefantiásico like his British model: more channels in the TDT and a project in Internet earlier put aside by the ignorance of a future present fact.

The crisis came and the television needs to slim. The question is what the public service must be in the digital age. The BBC has reigned like Elizabeth II. His throne is indisputable and his empire dominates the television, the radio, Internet and even to the newspapers. In Spain Alberto Oliart, with head of agent and mantita of home-loving viewer in the knees, has come to give vile club to a model with tendency to get out of hand. While, the autonomic telestado devours all that can nicely.

The question is what public service the radio and television redeems in the digital age. Do not ask the proprietors of the private roads, they will say that none. To the viewers' associations? You doubt. The politicians only are interested in the power: licenses, partisan control, to support a business of high visibility. Do not look for it in the new audio-visual law, they will only find ambiguities. Someone should answer sincerely why we have spent so much money in the TDT without making use of the technological change for a universal network of wide band capable of offering all kinds of contents.

More proper production, they ask for the trade unions. More responsibility and a platform of really public contents, we must demand the citizens.

My column in the Vocento means