A major, international daily newspaper based here in Boston announced last week that they plan to cease daily publication in the coming months - at least in print format. They'll be shifting to a weekly printed magazine format, and they'll be shifting more of their content on line. The Christian Science Monitor once had more than 300,000 daily subscribers, but that number has been dwindling fast. And the cost to print and distribute coast-to-coast simply can't compete with the cost to push pixels to your desktop or iPhone. Despite its name, the Monitor is an independent, professional publication well known for its detailed international and political coverage.
The generations that grew up on newsprint may be dwindling, and the Monitor is ahead of the curve in moving to reduce its costs and revaluate its distribution model. Monitor readers may be willing to pay for an iPhone application, or other news outlets that are cutting staff may pay for syndicated stories - all ways to make revenue on-line. And pushing more readers to the Monitor site will increase ad revenue - although it won't reach the levels of print advertising.
As a paper respected by journalist, the Monitor's greatest asset is the stories is collects each day. By finding new ways to syndicate these stories, and by reaching a broader audience on-line - an audience in the millions, not the hundreds of thousands - they'll be better positioned to find new revenue sources. The money won't come easily, but by moving On-line, the Monitor is moving in the right direction.
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