TU likely to charge Web users

The Hearst Corporation, owner of The Times Union, is trying to figure out how much of its content to put behind a paid firewall. It's also planning to get rid of its biggest paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, and to cut a lot more jobs, including at the TU. None of this is a surprise, of course, and is part of the broader free-fall of the newspaper business, including at the bankrupt Journal Register Co. (owner of papers in Troy and Saratoga) and the Schenectady Gazette (which has had wave after wave of layoffs, and like the TU recently raised prices for the paper product). I take no joy in saying that charging more for weaker content is not a propitious economic model.

Comments

[Kathleen Moore]

FYI: Per my interview with George Hearst -- He sez Hearst is negotiating for major union givebacks -- that's why it threatened to close the paper. In the end, the union will give in, balancing the preservation of some jobs over the loss of everything. So the Chronicle won't close...at least not in this round.
--Kathleen

[Brian]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Local papers need to focus on three things: local, local and local. There are a million different places I can go to for coverage of national and international news or infotainment nonsense, but really only one if I want coverage (however wanting) of Glens Falls and Queensbury news. I know the TU is a little different, in that it's one of the few papers of record on state news. The old model of trying to be everything to everybody is no longer viable in the age of the internet. Local papers need to focus on what makes them unique and that is their local presence. That, not charging a dollar to read the online obits, is what will save them... if anything can.