

I could not name you an under-25 year old who subscribes to a print newspaper - derekc
http://www.nytpick.com/2010/06/nyt-columnist-david-pogue-declares-i.html

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wooster
A subscription to the New York Times costs $769.60 per year. A good chunk of
that is printing and delivery costs for something I don't want anyway: a giant
stack of physical paper. On top of the odd environmental disconnect of
shipping a whole tree's worth of paper to each individual customer in tiny
chunks every day over a year, there's the disconnect of customers paying to
have advertising delivered to them.

How they expect people to pay for that in a world where I can read their best
articles online for free is totally beyond me.

What I would like to see is:

\- An iPad version of the full paper (not just the selections they have now).

\- No advertising.

\- A price reflective of the reduced printing and delivery costs. I don't want
to subsidize the physical paper subscriptions of other people.

\- Fast search and access to the archives from within the iPad app.

Then again, as long as the web site remains free (although hobbled by
advertising and splitting articles across pages), I doubt the iPad app would
get much traction. You never know though.

Also, with all that said, I don't live in New York. For my local paper (the
San Francisco Chronicle) to warrant me subscribing, they'd need to start doing
some real journalism. For example, they could look at the city and state
government. In a budget crisis, you'd think there would be plenty of material
to use. The milquetoast reporting they currently practice isn't worth any of
my money.

~~~
psyklic
You're telling the papers to: (1) Get rid of their largest revenue stream
(advertising), and (2) Increase spending (more reporters).

How does that work?

~~~
wooster
I'm telling them to get rid of their biggest cost: printing and distribution.

Also, I'm not saying they should get rid of the classifieds section, which is
a big chunk (about half? hard to find any data on it) of their advertising
income.

As for reporters: they're cheap. In the range of $40-100k (from quick Google
search) a year for a New York Times reporter. Much less at other papers. Hire
10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud in San Francisco and I'd
be happy to plunk down a subscription fee.

~~~
Tichy
"Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud"

Isn't that actually the job of the police?

~~~
rabidgnat
The police investigates crimes that have already been observed. Journalists
have the freedom to investigate potential crimes based on their gut feeling.
Recall Enron - a police officer standing anywhere in Headquarters would have
missed a crime. However, some pesky reporters asking too many questions
brought the whole operation to its knees.

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moultano
I subscribed to the San Jose Mercury News once because some kid came door to
door signing people up as a fundraiser. I gave in because his pitch was so
self aware: "Hey man, I know nobody wants the paper, but would you still mind
helping me out?"

I did, for $20, and it was an obnoxious several months waiting for the paper
to stop. I had twice as much crap to throw away every week as usual, and I
didn't read the paper once.

The worst part is that now every newspaper in the bay area has me on their
list of people-who-might-buy-a-paper and calls me every two weeks trying to
get me to subscribe. When they call I tell them that I'd be happy to subscribe
to support the paper if they can guarantee me that I'll never _ever_ receive a
physical newspaper. So far none have been able to.

~~~
ars
You would really give charity to a newspaper?

I guess you could just buy some ads from them.

~~~
moultano
I give to NPR every year. I don't see much difference in how I should act
towards the two organizations despite the newspapers ostensibly being for-
profit (ha). I like NPR's product more, but they both provide a really
valuable public service that I'm happy to pay for.

I don't know if newspapers can maintain their newsrooms on an NPR-sized
budget, but I'd love to see them go that route.

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pmcginn
I think 25 is a pretty low limit.

This is all anecdotal, but I know probably a few hundred people in the 21-30
age bracket, and I can only think of three who get a paper (the WSJ in every
case) delivered daily. There are a few more who will grab a daily during a
lunch break, but the vast majority of people I know who read a paper will only
read the free ones. (Here in Philadelphia we have three major free ones--a
daily and two weeklies.)

A few months back I tried to watch the ABC news podcast at lunch every day to
make sure I wasn't missing any important news. I kept it up for a few weeks,
but gave up when I realized only about 10% of the running time covered stories
I hadn't already consumed online before even the episode's original airtime.
Since I don't read a daily, I don't know if that's the case for them, but I
have a feeling that between Google Reader and Twitter I have a better
tailored, more complete picture of the world than I can get could from one
daily source.

~~~
sliverstorm
It's definitely an weird feeling to hear news from a reputable source, and
realize everything they are saying that you care about, you already heard
about a week ago! This supports my notion that newspapers etc are primarily
useful to get a high-level overview of things that you don't personally care
so much about.

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DanBlake
Im not sure the "under 25" demographic was ever a hot market for _purchasing_
print newspapers, at any time.

~~~
watmough
What about amongst bored university students?

My first job after lectures and eating lunch, was to read through the Times,
Scotsman, Guardian and Independent. And this is back in the day when all these
papers were in 'broadsheet' form, not the flimsy tabloids of today.

I might have been the exception. ;-)

~~~
Kadin
I used to do the same thing, but the papers were free and left out in bins by
the cafeteria entrance. I think lots of people will pick up a paper and read
it while they drink coffee or eat lunch (even if it's just for the crossword
or funnies).

But newspapers are interested, obviously, in who will actually _buy_ it. And
I'm not sure that those free subscriptions in college really translated into
many post-college sales, at least not immediately.

FWIW, I do subscribe to two papers now, one daily and one just Sundays. The
daily is for news, the Sunday is for the coupons. (Coupons pay for the paper
many times over if you use them.) The daily was absurdly cheap when I bought
the subscription ... less than a dime or so a day IIRC. It won't be that cheap
when the subscription runs out so I doubt I'll renew. Most days I don't read
it and I feel bad about all the waste.

------
corin_
I'm 20, and I get the Guardian and the Financial Times (in the UK) every day.
I don't actually subscribe to them, rather buy them from the shop each day,
but that's just because my job takes me away from home regularly (in 2009 I
spent 170/365 days at various events around the world) so subscribing would
just be a waste for me.

I do have subscriptions to two weekly magazines (on news), a biweekly magazine
(satirical/news) and four monthly magazines (tech & lifestyle).

An interesting note on the subject of magazines: PricewaterhouseCoopers
released their "Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2010-2014" report a few
days ago, and their view on magazine sales is:

"Total global spending on consumer magazines fell by 10.6 percent in 2009. We
project an additional 2.7 per cent decrease in 2010, a flat market in 2011,
and modest growth during 2012-14. As a result, spending will total $74 billion
in 2014, up 0.7 percent compounded annually from $71.5 billion in 2009."

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waterlesscloud
I'm waay past 25, but I can't see subscribing to a print paper any more. I had
a WSJ subscription at one point in my life, could almost see doing that again,
but it doesn't seem to have the value it once had.

I live in LA, I buy the LA Times sometimes, and I think it's a good paper
that's gotten better by focusing more on local news than national or world
stories. I don't want a subscription just because of the hassle of the dealing
with it physically every day.

I've had a subscription to The Economist running for years, and it is very
much worth having for physical perusing. I have subscribed to Nature on and
off over the years, and would consider it again.

I have an electronic subscription to Variety, the Hollywood trade daily. I
would go physical if I had an office to deliver it to.

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phreeza
I turned 25 two days ago, but I have a newspaper subscription here I share
with my roommates. We also get a weekly magazine, something like TIME
magazine. Also I know a number of people in the same demographic, with the
same model.

This is in Germany, don't know if that makes a difference.

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itgoon
Basically, newspapers and magazines have the same problem as CDs: you have to
buy a bunch of crap in order to get the one or two bits that you actually
like.

I suspect that ones that serve a focused niche will continue to survive, just
not at the size they've been used to.

------
wanderr
I'm 29 and I've never subscribed to a paper.

Even if the only way to get news was to pay for it, I'd pay for a digital
subscription of some kind before I'd ever consider subscribing to a paper.
Newspapers are wasteful, messy, and of course unwieldy. Annoying to handle and
laid out so articles are always split up randomly across multiple huge, floppy
pages.

Or I can have the convenience of being able to read the news anywhere, have
each article be contiguous and usually on one page, never have to throw
anything away, etc. The fact that I can get my news for free digitally is a
bonus, really.

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GiraffeNecktie
I'm mid-fifties and grew up reading every paper I could get me hands on, along
with all the major newsweeklies. That was then. Now some days my local
newspaper is handing out free sample copies on the street and most times I
couldn't be bothered. Newspaper? It's over for me.

------
zokier
I recently looked into subscribing to the International Herald. It just costs
way too much for a poor student like me. Especially when I'm not entirely sure
if I'll manage to read it and if I like the content. But I'll probably
subscribe when I get a steady income.

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kingofspain
Subscriptions made buying papers more convenient and often cheaper (though not
always, weirdly!). No more trips to newsagent in the rain to find they have
sold out etc etc. The net has more or less trounced them in the convenience
stakes. Now arranging a sub and waiting for the postman to arrive is more of a
hassle than firing up a browser whenever I want to catch up.

I still buy newspapers - maybe more than I used to, but a subscription these
days just seems a bit pointless far as I'm concerned. Not only that, but the
quality of free gifts for signing up has fallen to a shocking, almost
insulting, level!

Sent from my iDevice so please forgive the fresh he'll that is my auto-
spelling.

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pjhyett
There's just so many ways to consume information these days, that physical
newspapers seem to be the least effective medium at this point. I subscribe to
the NYT on my Kindle and haven't looked back.

They aren't doing themselves any favors by sticking with the large paper
format either. Trying to read a newspaper in any sort of tight quarters like
an airplane is a fools errand. I'm curious if they've ever considered making
newspapers magazine sized.

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ErrantX
Hello. I'm 23 and I've had a times subscription for the last 5 years (since
leaving home). But, yeh. I'm in a minority I think.

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bluemetal
I used to subscribe to one last year, but I just wasn't reading the whole
thing. It was a pain to go online and find out more information, to
participate in any discussions or to lookup words or terms I didn't know. Then
I got Google Reader and canceled that subscription. Never going back. (under
25)

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esoterick
My friend is getting his Bachelors in Business and in one of his classes his
professor recommended that everyone subscribe to the wall street journal. He
did but he has never picked one up we have a nice stack by our shoes.

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bryanh
Me and the WSJ. You lose?

~~~
rflrob
I get the Sunday SF Chronicle, and am <25 for another 6 months.

~~~
ahk
Ok gotta ask... Why??

~~~
tlammens
because he was born 24 years and 6 months ago, duh! ;-)

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coned88
I find reading newspapers to be a waste of time, I much rather just listen to
pure news on the radio, news that has no opinion. It just says "10 killed in
Hurricane", "BP tried to stop the leak this way, and it fauled, will try
method X tommrow"

Thats all I really care about. I don't need to be fed opinion, especially not
social liberal ramblings from the NYT or WSJ. If I want to know more about
something, I read a book on the matter.

