Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Newspapers have never made money from news

“Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet."

That's the opionion of Google's chief economist Hal Varian speaking to a workshop on the changing economics of the newspaper industry. (via Techcrunch)

He continues by saying that

“The fact of the matter is that newspapers have never made much money from news, They make money from “special interest sections on topics such as Automotive, Travel, Home & Garden, Food & Drink,, and so on.” The problem is that on the Web, other niche sites which cater to those categories are a click away, leaving the newspapers with sections which are harder to sell ads against, such as sports, news, and local.

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