Newspapers: Forget Paywalls, Take Content Live

Suddenly every newspaper is talking about a Journal-style online paywall or a "freemium" subscription model, but Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins is resigned that "stunned and traumatized" papers are on their way out. Instead of paywalls, Papers should learn from the battered music industry, which has used "the long-tail economics of live enterprise" to fund hard-to-sell content. Newspapers' brands are still viable, even if their finances have collapsed.

"Newspapers will have to generate new markets for their wares," the columnist writes: concerts, sporting events, seminars, dating agencies. To survive, the content must become only the "core activity" supporting a diverse mass brand: "Goodbye Guardian, welcome the Guardian Experience." (More paywall stories.)