Brian Burns

The State of the News Media 2010 is seventh edition of PEJ/Pew’s annual report on the health and status of American journalism.

In his blog post, ‘The Money Graph’, Jeff Jarvis extracts data from the PEJ report that suggests that news organisations, fixated with implementing pay walls, are wasting precious time.

65% of online news consumers do not have a site that is so important to them that it stands out in their minds above all other sites they visit … 82% of those with a favorite site said they would find somewhere else to get the news (if they were asked to pay for the content) … Only 7% of all people who get news online through a favorite source would be willing to pay for the content. This is a sign of just how much initial difficulty the movement toward pay walls could have.

Instead, Jarvis suggests that publishers “should be paying attention to the big problems (like,) dreadful engagement and loyalty. (They) should be looking at other ways to give and gain value in our relationships with the public.”

The question is, will publishers listen to this sound advice, before it’s too late?

The shrinking money left in print, which still provides 90% of the industry’s funds, is the amount of time left to invent new revenue models online. The industry must find a new model before that money runs out.