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March 17, 2009 03:16 AM UTC

Be Forever, Rocky Mountain News

  • 20 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

We don’t care what you call it:

Everything you’ve said, we’ve said about the decline of both the quality and viability of independent local media, and the deleterious effects that decline has on all of our institutions, relationships, and society as a whole, comes down to a simple choice you can make right now. Take a five dollar a month stand for your right to know.

Comments

20 thoughts on “Be Forever, Rocky Mountain News

    1. If they can get the 50,000 subscribers their backers are asking for, I’d say they have a great shot at making it work.

      At $60/year, that’s a revenue stream of $3 million.  They don’t have any debt, no printing presses, no delivery ecosystem to support…

      Their staff is only in the dozens.

      Advertising is gravy at that point.

      I’m looking forward to getting both my “papers” again!

      1. If the Rocky follows all the other online publications, it’s going to continue to stream video – which has tons of infrastructure and licensing costs based on the media type they stream.

        That’s on top of the usual IT infrastructure to stream and serve the media – and not counting the endless seats of creative software necessary to publish it online. I just might pick up a bunch of Adobe stock today..

        Online advertising won’t carry the day either – this market has set a very low price for online, and it’s not enough to support the paper by itself.

        What it needs to do is offer tiered subscriptions, and offer micropayment options for breaking news (such as Jethro Cutler’s latest petulant snit with the Broncos)

        Also, classified ads will have to follow the eBay model – basic is free (or almost free) but all the bells and whistles will cost you.

        Lastly, they have to break into mobile device delivery – big time. If they want to recapture the 20-something market, this publication better delivery to iPhone, Blackberry Storm and Sony Ericsson tm506..

        1. They will find they have to sell themselves. That means a marketing & sales effort, and that increases their headcount and other costs. Build it and they will come rarely works.

          As SSG_Dan says, the trick is how you monetize it. And that probably includes tiered pricing. I think it also includes a more effective advertising model.

        2. But I think they realize that they’re on a shoestring while in startup mode.  I’m in the s/w industry, and my wife runs a small online business.

          I suspect they can do quite alot of sizzle at much lower cost than what the old Rocky or Post (or the TV stations) are spending.  They probably won’t have much choice.

          And I’m really sure nobody’s making big bucks, which also lowers overhead drastically.

          It may wind up looking like a cross between the old Rocky web site and a blog like this, at least initially.

          I wish them all the best!

          1. Low wages, work your ass off, each person does 10 different jobs – yep, that’s how it works. That’s a good sign.

            But what’s also key is they show they have an approach that can grow and make more money. It may not today or tomorrow, it may need an investment to get it really flying, but there needs to be a clear potential.

            What will be key is if they can provide Jake Jabs or Dealing Doug with a powerful advertising mechanism.

            1. I wonder if the online edition shouldn’t cut directly to the chase and facilitate direct sales, and not just stop at being an advertising medium.  Virtual storefronts in a virtual mall.

              And maybe their niche will be the little businesses, instead of the Jake Jabs or Dealin’ Dougs, that would benefit the most by having a web sales outlet where today they may only have a physical store.

              I know there are competing services (I just noticed the Post links to a specialty online shopping site — but only because I was looking for it — it never jumped out at me before), so they’d still have to come up with a unique competitive edge (like really simple uploading of product catalogs).

              1. Sorry – to me online ads are the leader into the system where you close the sale with the person who clicked, take their money, and deliver the product. So yes, I agree with you 100%.

                For example, they go to the paper, say they want to buy a new leather couch, set up their criteria and price range, and it then presents choices from their advertisers. And then when clicking on one takes you to that store’s website.

        3. Both indenvertimes.com and iwantmyrocky.com both render reasonably well on a Blackberry, which is a great sign.

          Seems like half the news sites out there are so bogged down in extraneous crap that they’re un-viewable on mobile devices.

  1. Not the reporting staff, but the owners, the corporation, etc.  Are the old Rocky folks shareholders?  

    This is really, really exciting stuff.  To see any paper, not just the Rocky to change so radically and so forward looking is breathtaking.

    If I ever get an income again, I’ll pay my $5 just to support them.  

  2. But I’ll support the inDenver Times, and I pledged my support. (I’m curious as to why it’s coming May 4 though.) But there’s a lot of newspapers out there that are making it and working hard to keep people up to date: community newspapers. I would know, I work for one. There’s a lot of good papers out there in Denver, and we’re all looking for new readers. (There’s bad ones too, I will be the first to admit that.) The Rocky and the Post STILL won’t cover your local news as well as community papers will. Give them a look as well. There’s LOTS of voices in the Denver Metro Area.

    1. Is that there are not local papers for specific areas, but instead you have reporting and each is tagged for the geography it will be of interest to (maybe by zipcodes). So people who live on the borders of “parts” of Denver then get the stuff for the 2 areas they are in.

    2. But I can’t four!  It almost hurts.

      It’s “There are.”  I’ve noticed that “are” seems to be going the way of the dodo bird.

      Otherwise, nice.

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