12
April
2010
|
00:19 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Google CEO Says Adverts And Paywalls Will Help Newspapers

Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a meeting of newspaper executives that newspapers will become profitable again, reports Jake Sherman, on Politico.com.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's advice for American Society of News Editors

...it will be from online advertisements and an altered subscription model. Schmidt said his firm is working on new ways to tailor advertisements and content for consumers, based on what stories they read.
"We have a business model problem, we don't have a news problem," Schmidt said.

He was not specific about how the solution for profits would be delivered. He said that news should be more personalized and delivered through mobile devices.

"The web can ultimately be very good for news," Schmidt said. "Think about it: You have more readers than ever, you have more sources than ever, for sure you have more ways to report and new forms of money. New forms of making money will develop."

Foremski's Take: New ways of making money for newspapers will develop but they won't come quickly enough or provide enough revenues to restore newsrooms to a size large enough to produce quality news.

Even if Google was able to double or treble the amount of money newspapers could make from news--it wouldn't be enough. Advertisers have many other places to find customers.

It was interesting that Mr Schmidt spoke about subscriptions because his company has been trying to encourage newspapers to avoid paywalls. However, many newspapers, including the New York Times, have said they will begin charging for some online access.