Free access or not, global media houses think differently
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Big names in the global media industry came to the same topic at the World Media Summit Friday -- shall they be paid, or paid more, for access to content on the Internet?
The discuss could have a profound impact on this world as numerous people have been used to reading news and getting information free on the Internet.
"The web has become so democratized that it is expected that content and access to it will be free," said Jeffrey Gralnick, an NBC News special consultant.
Gralnick noted some people believe there is a way for new media users to pay for access. Micropayments and pay-to-post for bloggers are talked about.
Some media made a profit from websites, but many others failed despite heavy investment. "So free is the answer, I am convinced," Gralnick said.
Gralnick said that the "free strategy" requires a marriage of strong brands, the use of smart technology, production of and repurposing of smart user-useful content, and then a multi-platform push to achieve scale that turns pennies into dollars.
He said msnbc.com, a leading news website in the United States, is free for its users. However, it has more than a billion page views a month now, all producing revenue, and more than 150-million video streams each month, mostly preceded by pre-rolls.
However, Associated Press President and CEO Thomas Curley said one of the major challenges that AP faces now is to figure out how to get paid, which has been "the most elusive to all media leaders."
"Free-riders and pirates are claiming they're entitled to our property," he said at the opening ceremony of the WMS.
Chairman and CEO of News Corporation Rupert Murdoch said global media had been "submissive" as the flat-earthers insisted that all news content on the Internet should be free.
Too often the conventional media response to the Internet has been inchoate, he said. A medium once thought too powerful has often seemed impotent in the past few years, he added.
"I think a major challenge for the media is how to deal with the Internet, which provides a lot of opportunities and also a lot of dangers," said Eric McDonald Wishart, Asia-Pacific director of the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP).
Finding lawyers is almost an unrealistic way to solve the problem, and "piracy with the Internet is a major threat to this world," he said.
Curley said the AP has launched an AP3P effort, or Protect, Point and Pay, aiming to protect published news content against unauthorized exploitation and enable new content licensing models.
While media from the developed nations were talking about the Internet payment issue, others were concerned about how to serve the impoverished population who had no mobile phones, Internet access or even power.
Happison Muchechetere, CEO of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings, said a quarter of the African country's population have no access to power, not to speak of new technology and media.
He urged representatives at the World Media Summit to think about ways to solve problems for the poor rural population in Africa.
The global financial crisis was now threatening the remarkable gains achieved by Africa over the past decade and there was a real risk that millions would be thrown back into poverty, said Ogbede Dipo, editor-in-chief of the News Agency of Nigeria.
The World Media Summit, running from Oct. 8-10, gathered about 300 representatives from more than 170 media outlets from around the world, including wire services, newspapers and magazines, radio and television broadcasters, and on-line media.
It was jointly launched by the Xinhua News Agency, News Corporation, AP, Reuters, ITAR-TASS, Kyodo News, BBC, Turner Broadcasting System and Google Inc..
