Making changes to adapt to the future

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/07/2015 (3744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There were some words of wisdom this week from Conrad Black, who knows a few things about the newspaper business.

In a story first posted on our website Thursday afternoon, the former press baron was wagging his finger at Postmedia, the country’s largest newspaper chain.

Black was not only unhappy about the mounting losses at the company that now owns many of the newspapers he was once involved with, but also with what he described as a decline in journalistic quality.

“I care very much about these assets. I have nothing but high regard for you and your colleagues, but I’m very concerned we’ve got our feet stuck in cement here,” Black said.

Ouch!

The challenges facing Postmedia’s papers are the same as the ones confronting the Free Press. Advertising revenues aren’t what they used to be, and that puts more pressure on the costs associated with running a newsroom. But trying to offset revenue losses by round after round of cost-cutting poses risks to the brand and what it can deliver journalistically.

Rather than get stuck in wet cement, the Free Press has set a different course with our paid digital strategy that gives our audiences a variety of options to pay for what they read. And in what was a first for a North American newspaper, we recorded our initial à la carte purchase from our online smorgasbord of content when one of our readers paid $1.89 to read a bunch of articles last week.

Now, $1.89 isn’t enough to send our share price soaring. But it’s a significant development in a long journey as the Free Press has sought to adapt to the pressures of the present in order to ensure we will be able to deliver for our readers well into the future.

For more than a year, we have been working on a new model for delivering our content that introduces elements of choice and affordability. The launch of the newly redesigned website in May that recognized each individual reader was the first phase.

Over the past two months, every reader who wasn’t already a subscriber was able to enjoy a free trial as we sorted out some bugs and responded to feedback from our digital audiences.

The second phase began last week when the free trials began ending and those who weren’t already subscribers were given the option of becoming all-access members for $16.99 a month or using our pick-and-pay model priced at 27 cents per story. As I’ve mentioned previously, our 27-cent solution not only allows readers to create their own bundle of Free Press content, but also comes with a money-back guarantee.

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In the coming weeks, we will be rolling out additional new features such as a morning briefing to help start your day, all made possible by a newsroom that is growing in order to deliver what our readers deserve for their time and dime.

While all of this might impress Lord Black, what we really want is to keep you coming back to winnipegfreepress.com on your smartphone, tablet and desktop to get what you want and need.

Paul Samyn is the Free Press editor.

paul.samyn@freepress.mb.ca @paulsamyn