Some thoughts from the London Media Summit conducted at my alma mater under Chatham House rules.
Now, without much imagination, you can probably guess which panel it was. And you might even be able to guess from the website who thought what:
Some newspaper websites couldn’t have grown without Google.
But there may come a point at which it may be necessary to limit Google’s access.cf.
- Google News vs Danish Newspapers,
- Microsoft to Newspapers: You made information free. For Google,
- Belgian Newspapers To Google: Pay Us $77M For Indexing Our News
The newspaper industry has stood back and let Google assume dominance.
The prospect was raised of a Google licensing scheme or revenue share, cf. The End of Snippet View: Google Settles Lawsuit with Book Publishers.
News Corp. still an example to other newspaper publishers — looking at taking more control of distribution, finding out more about subscriber base.
Advertising won’t help — you need a decent cover price — like The Economist. But newspaper pricing is not very elastic, e.g. Sunday Times £2 move, Independent £1.
Display market costs a lot. Real challenge is monetizing fragmented international readership. Media companies need platform companies to make that happen.
No one has yet come out in favour of my own personal favourite idea — a Google Search Engine tax.