So....they're pulling Harvey, Solomon, Pancakes, and all the other D-grade columnists off chron? Sounds like a huge win to me. Edit: took a quick look at the "premium" site - looks a lot like they designed it exclusively with the iPad in mind. Looks horrific on my desktop.
This. The Chronicle's days of survival are numbered. Very few people are going to pay for this. Even though chron.com will remain free, I expect the Chronicle to gradually shift more and more content from chron.com to this new premium website.
No problems with it here, especially considering if they start generating online revenues they can ultimately justify paring down the print staff and budget. Incidentally I don't actually think the Chronicle will fail, big enough city to have a sufficiently literate and news conscious populace, but also blue-collar enough that they won't go to the Times or Journal for it, and will probably still go bonkers for those massive Sunday classifieds.
All of those online publications should have tried to fully monetize back in the 90's internet era when no one knew any better.
I used to read the NY Times religiously. This is why I got out of the habit. It's difficult to get in the habit of paying for online content when so much of it is free. I don't know why I feel differently about music and movies and TV shows and comic books. I guess it's because those things have never been free in a legal way. But there are so many great (free) resources on the internet it's difficult to justify paying for the news. I feel the same way about the Rockets. I'm not changing providers and it will be a bitter pill if I have to pay more monthly to watch the games if my provider makes a deal with Comcast when I've got an almost 40 year history of watching them on TV for free.
I'm fine with $2.50 a week. But why would I pay $2.50 for access to John McClain, Randy Harvey, and Jerome Solomon? The only guy I would definitely miss is Eric Berger. I don't think they could/would make Steph Stradley premium only since I believe she is an unpaid blogger. Loren Steffy is usually a worthwhile read. Ken Hoffman is lame. Lisa Falkenberg is ridiculous. Dwight Silverman is active and points out noteworthy news, but is as bad as an out of touch film critic with most of his op-ed pieces. Seriously, who here is worth paying money for? http://www.chron.com/columnists/ I've noticed a real change in the last 5 years or so - staff columnists (nationwide) are generally getting left in the dust by devoted bloggers. Chron did a good thing when they started tapping them as a free resource. They should have kept going and left all the op-ed stuff to them. All for the Chronicle looking for revenue streams to stay viable. But they have been a D- news outlet for some time. That's hardly worth $130/year in my book.
Chronicle has now closed off the "premium" content. I really wish I could see how their hit counts have fallen off. You'd have to think that the columnists aren't taking it well that they're writing for an audience of 30 now. If no one reads it, does a Lisa Falkenberg article really exist?
